APA members attending the 2000 annual meeting in Chicago will be served up a double treat in a workshop to be co-presented by psychiatrist and concert pianist Richard Kogan, M.D.: In addition to hearing some of the most glorious music ever written, the audience will gain fascinating insights about the composer who produced that music—Ludwig van Beethoven.

The workshop, titled "Beethoven and His Creative Evolution," will be held Tuesday, May 16, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Chicago Hilton.

Leading the session with Kogan is psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Arnold Cooper, M.D. The two will explore the historical, psychological, and biographical forces that influenced Beethoven’s shifts in style. Kogan will perform a range of pieces from throughout Beethoven’s life.

"We will speculate on the impact of Beethoven’s deafness on his artistic growth," said Kogan. "It appears that this tragic condition forced him to withdraw socially and to retreat into a world of his imagination where he created musical forms and sonorities unlike anything that had been previously heard."

As a young composer, Beethoven embraced the styles and conventions of his contemporaries, such as Haydn and Mozart, according to Kogan. Eventually, however, his quest to discover a personal voice led him to redefine classical style. "Beethoven reshaped preexisting musical language to express the full range of human experience—anxiety and aggression, as well as triumph and transcendence," said Kogan.