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Quantum Music of the Spheres: An Archetypal Genealogy of Resonance
with Zach Layton
On Thursday December 3rd 6-8 pm
Auditorium of the C.G. Jung Center (New York)
FREE in person event (registration required)
From ancient Greek ideas of cosmic harmony to contemporary experiments in quantum sonification, this lecture-performance traces the enduring imagination of a musical universe. Composer Zach Layton introduces his developing field of “archetypal acoustics,” asking how resonance can be understood at once as physical vibration, musical relation, and symbolic image—and how listening can bring questions of psyche and matter into contact.
At the center of the evening is the extraordinary dialogue between physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychologist C. G. Jung, whose shared investigations of synchronicity, archetypal patterns, and the relation between mind and matter brought modern physics into conversation with depth psychology. Layton also draws on James Hillman’s archetypal psychology, particularly Hillman’s method of personification and his polytheistic understanding of the psyche, to approach listening as an encounter with multiple voices, presences, and perspectives.
The project reaches back to the Pythagorean tradition, where musical proportion offered a way of hearing number as order. In Layton’s contemporary practice, quantum systems become a new kind of speculative instrument: mathematical relations involving phase, probability, superposition, entanglement and resonance are translated into sound and used as material for composition.
Through live performance, electronic sound, and demonstrations of quantum sonification, the evening brings these ideas into audible form. Rather than treating music as illustration, Layton uses listening itself as a mode of inquiry—opening questions about harmony and uncertainty, hidden patterns and perception, and the ways sound shapes our experience of the world.
Zach Layton is a composer, 17-string bassist, and Associate Professor of Music at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He holds a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MFA from Bard College.
Quantum Music of the Spheres: An Archetypal Genealogy of Resonance
with Zach Layton
On Thursday December 3rd 6-8 pm
Auditorium of the C.G. Jung Center (New York)
FREE in person event (registration required)
From ancient Greek ideas of cosmic harmony to contemporary experiments in quantum sonification, this lecture-performance traces the enduring imagination of a musical universe. Composer Zach Layton introduces his developing field of “archetypal acoustics,” asking how resonance can be understood at once as physical vibration, musical relation, and symbolic image—and how listening can bring questions of psyche and matter into contact.
At the center of the evening is the extraordinary dialogue between physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychologist C. G. Jung, whose shared investigations of synchronicity, archetypal patterns, and the relation between mind and matter brought modern physics into conversation with depth psychology. Layton also draws on James Hillman’s archetypal psychology, particularly Hillman’s method of personification and his polytheistic understanding of the psyche, to approach listening as an encounter with multiple voices, presences, and perspectives.
The project reaches back to the Pythagorean tradition, where musical proportion offered a way of hearing number as order. In Layton’s contemporary practice, quantum systems become a new kind of speculative instrument: mathematical relations involving phase, probability, superposition, entanglement and resonance are translated into sound and used as material for composition.
Through live performance, electronic sound, and demonstrations of quantum sonification, the evening brings these ideas into audible form. Rather than treating music as illustration, Layton uses listening itself as a mode of inquiry—opening questions about harmony and uncertainty, hidden patterns and perception, and the ways sound shapes our experience of the world.
Zach Layton is a composer, 17-string bassist, and Associate Professor of Music at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He holds a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MFA from Bard College.