Music at TED 2012

Music was a big part of this pre-day at TED and I loved it all!

The block party tonight featured the band Red Baraat.  This brass and percussion band played rollicking, energetic music that had people really bouncing on the dance floor. In preparing for this post, I did a bit of research, and that drum the leader plays at both ends is called a dohl, and the music is derived from Indian wedding music.  Listen to this video of their performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and see if it makes you want to go to an Indian wedding, the way I do!

Earlier in the afternoon, I was captivated by the lovely voice of Meklit Hadero.  She's from Ethiopia and lives in San Francisco and her music shows the influence of both places.  Here's a link to hear her.

The always ebullient Robert Gupta was back to treat us to some Bach.  I can't get enough of Robert Gupta.  In fact, in curating the TEDxIBYork conference, the first TED talk video I elected to include was Gupta's. Do watch it; it will pull at your heart strings.  Amazing again today.

Another great experience today was listening to Abigail Washburn on the banjo.   She was delightful.

Equally fascinating was her back story.  With a passion for changing the world through justice systems, and fluency in Chinese, Washburn was on her way to China to study law.  However, she stopped at a Kentucky Blue Grass Festival with her newly-acquired banjo.  She was invited to jam with a few musicians and all of a sudden, she was offered a recording contract in Nashville.  So off she went to build a career in music and to charm audiences around the world with her banjo and songs - in English and Chinese!  Washburn is still committed to bettering the world, and her TED Fellow descriptor lists her as a singer + banjo player + cultural activist.  But, as she says, US-China relations didn't need another lawyer.

Catch some video of her singing in Chinese here.

A Terrific Jam Session

Another great day at TED, topped off by a really good party. I managed to have a number of really interesting conversations.

Then, on arriving back at the hotel, there was a sound system set up in the lobby and a crowd of people sitting/standing around. There was a jam session with most of the musicians from the conference, joined by a flamenco guitarist who was apparently playing in the hotel.

The session was hosted by the totally charming and completely endearing Jake Shimabukuro, who has astonished with his virtuoso ukelele playing. During his TED presentation, he'd showed off his range by playing flamenco music, Ave Maria and Bohemenian Rhapsody. I walked in as he was playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

He was joined by the string quartet Ethel, who has been playing musical interludes all conference with Thomas Dolby.
Then there was the incomparable Robert Gupta. At Juliard at 14, graduated from Yale at 20 and now the youngest violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he is one of the TED Fellows, who essentially win a 'scholarship' to attend TED. He delivered an amazing talk at TED University, describing his relationship as violin teacher to Nathaniel Ayers, the violinist befriended by the LA Times journalist and subject of the movie The Soloist. It was a powerfully delivered and emotionally charged talk. He has since played a couple of interludes of exquisite classical music that could make you cry. Another TED Fellow sitting beside me tonight says he is as delightful a person as he is musician.

Then, in pop two of the dancers from the dance troupe LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) with mindblowing modern dancing. This was dancing street style and totally blow-away.

As Jake was trying to close the session down, resisting an enormous chorus of bravos and whistles and calls for 'one more', in waltzes Natalie Merchant who had magnificently closed out this afternoon's session. She delivered a lyrical and luscious version of that old World War II standard "Every time we say goodbye". That still didn't satisfy the crowd, and Jake delivered one final wonderful number, before we scattered to our rooms.

I always get to listen to musicians I'm not familiar with at TED, and see dancers I wouldn't have seen. This year was a particularly rich selection. Thomas Dolby is amazing in putting together an incredible selection of artists. But to hear them up close in a jam session in the lobby is a thrill I won't soon forget.