Richard Kogan (physician)

Richard Kogan (born 1955) is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical Center; Co-Director of the Medical Center's Human Sexuality Program; and Artistic Director of the Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Program.

He also conducts a private practice of psychiatry in New York City.

In parallel with his medical vocation, Kogan pursues an equally serious vocation as a concert pianist. This unique combination of accomplishments has led him to develop a series of renowned lecture-recitals that explore the role of music in healing, and the influence of psychological factors and psychiatric and other medical illness on the creative work of composers.

Richard Kogan is the son of a gastroenterologist from Elizabeth, New Jersey, the second of five children. A musical prodigy, he began piano performances in 1961 at age 6. But the world of medicine was never far from the family life; his father took his precocious son on medical rounds. His mother, for her part, enrolled him at the Juilliard School of Music Pre-college, where he studied piano with Nadia Reisenberg.

At Harvard University, where he studied music (his major) and completed a pre-medical curriculum, Kogan formed a trio with his Juilliard friend Yo-Yo Ma and with violinist Lynn Chang. After earning a bachelor's degree at Harvard in 1977, he went to Harvard Medical School under a special five-year plan that enabled him to travel and perform concerts.

Kogan received his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1982. He completed a psychiatry residency and an academic fellowship at New York University.

In 2001, Kogan presented a symposium at the American Psychiatric Association on mental illness and musical creativity. The resulting experience was a revelation to him and launched him on a new career. It brought home to him that exploring the psyches of composers made him a better interpreter of their scores, and that understanding the role of music in people's lives made him a better psychiatrist.

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