Fredrik Ullén

Fredrik Ullén is a concert pianist and cognitive neuroscientist. He serves as a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt and is also Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. As a pianist, Ullén has performed in leading concert venues in Europe, Canada, and the US. He is represented as soloist on around 25 CD records, which include e.g. the complete piano music by György Ligeti (with the world première recording of the "Etudes pour piano", book II), Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s monumental “100 Transcendental Studies”, alongside other contemporary and Romantic repertoire. His recordings have received outstanding critics and many accolades, including e.g. Diapason d’or, CHOC de Le Monde de la Musique, and FonoForum’s Stern des Monat. A main focus of Fredrik Ullén’s research is to analyze the brain mechanisms underlying musical expertise, skill learning and creativity. Researchers in his department also investigate the gene-environment interplay underlying individual differences in musical behaviors, and the relations between cultural engagement, well-being and health. In many of their studies on creativity, Ullén’s team uses musical improvisation as a model behavior. Fredrik Ullén is a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society, and fellow of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music and Academia Europaea.