I saw this on YouTube after a tweet from my buddy, Bruce. How cool is that?
This is a superb version of one of my favourite songs and Springsteen himself recommended it. Enjoy.
(BTW, does anyone know how to format the video so the sides are not sticking out like that?)
Every year, there are three prizes awarded at TED which are called, appropriately enough, as the TED Prize. The winner of each prize receives $100,000 plus "One Wish to Change the World."
This year, one of these was awarded to a remarkable man from Venezuela, Jose Abreu who, through music, has changed the lives of 300,000 children and young people in his native country.
Abreu founded a teaching method, known as "El Sistema" that has led to the creation of 102 youth orchestras, 55 children's orchestras, and 270 music centers around the country and given hope to literally hundreds of thousands of people for whom mere hope would have been unattainable.
Here are two clips, Abreu's moving acceptance speech followed by a performance of The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra, led by Gustavo Dudamel. Dudamel is himself a product of El Sistema, the Conductor of the LA Philharmonic, and among world's great maestros, despite his youthful age of 26.
I confess I haven't listened to much classical music - I've always meant to address that because there is so much beauty within it - but frankly, I've just never felt compelled to do so. Classical music has always been like a country I planned to visit one day, but knowing it would always be there, have never felt any urgency about it. That changed a little at TED. Listening to these high school kidsdance out of their seats while they performed was one of the most joyful expressions of life I've seen in a long time.
This is something special to behold but you mustn't listen with the volume set low: turn it up!
Simply the most delicious dessert to end this long week of downbeat news and seemingly endless string of on-ice defeats.
Savour it all, start with the speech, then sit back and enjoy the magic. You will be smiling by the end or your money back.
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