CLEVELAND, February, 2009 Internationally renowned psychiatrist and concert pianist Dr. Richard Kogan will return to Cleveland to perform a fascinating concert/lecture on composer George Gershwin at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 6, 2009, in Mixon Hall of the Cleveland Institute of Music. The evening is presented by the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center, with proceeds supporting the Center’s programs.

Kogan is an extremely popular performer, both internationally and locally, this being his fifth presentation to the Cleveland psychoanalytic community.

The June 6 program, titled “The Mind and Music of George Gershwin,” will explore both the stylistic period of Gershwin’s music and the psychological forces that influenced the composer’s human and artistic development. Gershwin’s childhood was hardly idyllic – his parents were gamblers who moved the family nearly 30 times during his youth. Gershwin’s was “a childhood that could have gone off the rails without the influence of music,” Kogan explains, yet the “transformative healing effects of music” enabled him to reach his creative potential.

A graduate of the Julliard School of Music Pre-College, Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, Richard Kogan has gained worldwide recognition for his concert/lectures delving into the psychological factors influencing composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Leonard Bernstein. His performance and presentation skills have been lauded by critics around the world. A reviewer for the Boston Globe wrote that “Kogan has somehow managed to excel at the world’s two most demanding professions,” and a New York Times writer praised his “eloquent, compelling and exquisite playing.” Kogan has received the Concert Artists Guild and Artsgenesis Creative Achievement awards and won the Kosciuszko Foundation’s Chopin Competition. He is a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City and co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at Weill-Cornell Medical School in New York.

Among the Gershwin works he will perform are “Swanee,” “Rhapsody in Blue,” and selections from the acclaimed folk opera “Porgy and Bess,” including “Summertime,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’.”.

About the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center

Located in the Cedar-Fairmount neighborhood of Cleveland Heights, the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center is a non-profit organization formed from the merger of the former Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute and Cleveland Psychoanalytic Society, both of which have been active for almost 50 years. The Center is an educational and membership organization of psychoanalysts that provides professional education and training, promotes scholarship and research, and offers community education, consultation and referral services. The Center’s mission is to promote the development and use of psychoanalysis for the benefit of the community.

An accredited Institute of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Center offers training in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, as well as other continuing education and enrichment programs. The Center is supported primarily through private contributions, member dues, tuition and fees.