In this course, Professor Kim Walker will explore imagination, creativity and transformation as seen through some of the great minds who have changed or influenced our world. Music, art and philosophy share the message as we begin in the Renaissance and continue up to the final session when we shall all be great minds, creating our own imagination maps for our own times. Ovid, Rilke, Dylan Thomas, Hildegard von Bingen, Leonardo da Vinci, Gandhi, Einstein, Mozart, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Van Gogh, Picasso, Martha Graham, Stravinsky and others will feature in this series of tales of music, art, romance and inspiration.

While mystics and scientists don’t have to master a paintbrush or musical instrument, the way of the artist, the scientist and the spiritual mystic are related. Their lifestyles require an environment conducive to optimal work, in a space of integrity, accompanied by years and years of formal practice involving focus, self-discipline and imagination. Success is unmeasurable in the short term, often invisible and arrives when the integration into the world as a whole of all that has been learned, mastered and practised, shines forth.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and science.” 
Albert Einstein, What I believe 1930

Professor Kim Walker is Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. She has performed as a soloist with many of Europe's leading orchestras, with conductors including Ashkenazy, Solti, Bernstein, Rattle and Dorati, and as a recording artist on more than 22 solo CDs. Trained in Europe and the United States she won the Geneva Conservatorium’s Premier Prix de Virtuosité and is one of the world’s foremost bassoonists and a common name in the leading music festivals. She was formerly Director of Arts and Cultural Outreach, Associate Dean of Research, Associated Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington.

• Fridays 10.30am - 12.30pm or Saturdays 11.00am – 1.00pm
The course will be taught in 10 sessions. Lectures will be held in the Domain Theatre at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Ticket price includes lecture notes, coffee during intermissions and a glass of wine after each lecture.

View lecture listing and book online

Great Minds is part of The Learning Curve series proudly sponsored by

Ludwig van Beethoven by Josef Karl Stieler, detail. Photo Alfredo Dagli Orti  © Bettmann/CORBIS.