If you want to light a fire under Anthony Brandt, ask him a question about new music.

"Going to hear music you have never heard before puts you in a position of being a child. It's the fountain of youth," Brandt exclaims with both hands in the air. "We know that schema making is crucial to higher intelligence. The role of art is the bending and breaking of old rules and the making of new schema."

Brandt, founder of Musiqa and an associate professor of Composition and Theory at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, knows his brain science. He's the man behind the upcoming conference Exploring the Mind Through Music at Shepherd. Well aware of the memory enhancing powers of novelty, Brandt proposes one listen to contemporary music to do the job.

New Music gets overlooked too often. Just listen to Alex Ross' rant on the subject. We seem to have no problem with contemporary visual art, theater or dance, yet when it comes to music, audiences and arts organizations can seem stuck in the past. Instead of whining about the new music drought on today's music concert stage, Brandt prefers to act as a fearless advocate, telling his students, "You are the musicologists and curators of the 20th Century."

At Musiqa, he's doing his part to expose Houston to fresh sounds with "Real and Imagined," an exploration of reality and fantasy with Musiqa and Aurora Picture Show, which will be held 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Brandt carefully arranged the program to meld well with the film components, selected by Aurora curator, Mary Magsamen.

"Each work contains recognizable elements or 'totems' of indigenous music, out of which the composer develops a personal statement," Brandt says. "Thus, all of this music lies somewhere between shared traditions that evolved collectively and the 'imagined' of an individual vision."

Heading into their fourth event together, Musiqa has found a partner in Aurora. "We truly enjoy the process of collaborating with Musiqa, as they do for the classic music experience what Aurora's does for the cinematic experience," Magsamen says. "We both enjoy breaking the rules and shining a light on new talent."

The eclectic program includes Paul Frehner's Oracle for violin and tabla, a propulsive work for violin and percussion, using a set of Indian hand drums, called 'tablas.' "The piece is improvisatory in character and, in the words of the composer, 'tries to evoke a primal setting, in which communication to the spirit world is achieved through frenzied and energetic ritualistic motions,'" Brandt says.

Houston Symphony assistant conductor Brett Mitchell will conduct Theo Loevendie's Six Turkish Folk Poems for soprano and ensemble. Loevendie, one of Holland's most celebrated composers and founder of the Ziggurat Ensemble, draws on his Turkish heritage, infusing it with contemporary virtuosity and flair.

"Originally an accomplished jazz player; he turned to classical music in his forties, quickly becoming internationally renowned as both a composer and teacher," Brandt says. Evan Chambers: Love Dogs for string trio, riffs on American folk fiddle playing to create a lively string trio.

Eve Beglarian: I Will Not Be Sad in This World for flute and electronics is based on a song by the 18th-century Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova. One of New York's foremost "downtown" composers, Beglarian's work has been featured at Bang-on-a-Can All-Stars, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra and others.

Magsamen selected films that work well with Musiqa's mission. "Takashi Ishida's Film of the Sea is very contemporary, compelling and unique. It bends reality, collapsing and transforming space, time and image through animation, film and music.

"It's stunning and created in the same creative spirit that Musiqa works," she says. "The two minute short, The Art of Drowning by Diego Maclean makes a nice compliment to Film of the Sea because it's an animation based upon a poem by American poet Billy Collins that also uses water as context for the story."

Film and music come together in Musiqa resident composer Pierre Jalbert's Visual Abstract, performed live to a film by Jean Detheux. Jalbert hopes the audience will perceive the film and music as a single entity.

"Last year, I composed music to Jean's film," Jalbert says. "This year Jean and I wanted to reverse the process — he would create his film to my previously existing music; a piece entitled Visual Abstract, which appropriately used images as its initial inspiration." Mitchell conducts.

Trailer for The Art of Drowning by Diego Maclean

Visual Abstract (1st movement) from Jean Detheux on Vimeo.