TEDxBrussels - Charles Hazlewood and the British Paraorchestra - Music of the Future (HQ)
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Music is the most universal language that we have,
way more so than any dialect or tongue.
You can play a melody to a child in China
and the same melody to a child in South Africa.
Despite the huge differences between those two children,
they will still draw some of the same truths from that melody.
Now I think the reason why music has this universality,
this way of speaking to each and every one of us,
is that somehow it is capable of holding up a mirror to us
that reveals, in some small or large way,
a little bit of who or what we are.
By logical extension of this,
if music is this universal force,
then surely groups of musicians,
let's call them orchestras,
should reflect every aspect of the community.
Logical, but not necessarily true.
At TEDxBrussels today, we've been looking forward to the future,
50 years from now, I' gonna ask you
to go in the other direction for a minute,
and to come back with me 50 years into the past,
the early 1960s to be precise.
And if you took a look at all the great orchestras
of the world at that time, a snapshot,
how many women do you think you would find
playing in those orchestras?
The answer, virtually none.
Well, here we are 50 years on, in 2011,
and pretty much every orchestra on the planet
has a fantastic and healthy balance between the sexes.
Of course, I hear you say, totally logical.
How about another aspect of the community?
The disabled community.
Do we find them well represented
in the great orchestras of our world?
Well, I can tell you as a conductor
I work with orchestras around the world all the time
and I can count on the fingers of one hand
the number of disabled musicians I've encountered
in any orchestra anywhere.
Why is this?
You can't tell me that there aren't millions upon millions
of prodigiously gifted musicians of disability around the world.
Where is that platform?
Where is the infrastructure that creates a space for them
so that they can collaborate with other great musicians?
So, ladies and gentlemen, as you can probably tell
I'm on a bit of a mission.
And this mission has a personal root to it.
I have four children, the youngest of whom was born with cerebral palsy.
She's now five and through her glorious existence,
I suppose I have now become a fully paid-up member
of the amazing, dizzyingly wonderful disabled community.
And I find myself looking at the Paralympics
and thinking what an incredible model that is!
It's taken a good five decades actually,
but I can say with hand on heart
that when the Paralympics comes to London next year,
there will not be any intelligent person anywhere on the planet
who does not absolutely believe in the validity of disabled sportspeople.
What an amazing position to be in!
So, ladies and gentlemen, where the hell is music in all this?
Apologies to any of you who are sports fans,
but music is far more universal than sport.
Where is the platform? Where is their voice?
So, we, in the UK, are at the very early stages
in forming what will be Britain's first ever
national disabled orchestra.
We are going to call it the British Paraorchestra
because with the world's eyes on London next year
and particularly on the Paralympics
we want to throw down the gauntlet
to every single other country that is represented there,
to say to them, "Here is our Paraorchestra, where is yours?"
Every country should have a multiplicity of paraorchestras
of all shapes and sizes, no question.
Now today is a very special day for me
because it is the first time that the first four members
of my little embryonic paraorchestra
are going to play in public.
Four extraordinary musicians of which the number will grow and grow.
I hope in the end the paraorchestra could even be as big as 50 musicians.
We present you today a little sonic adventure,
a little piece of improvisational whimsy, if you like,
a piece on which, of course, the ink is still wet,
the clay is still wet.
After all, improvisation is never a fixed thing.
We decided what we wanted to share with you,
at the heart of our improvisation,
was a tune which is beloved of British people.
It's one of the only folk melodies
that we still recognize in our culture.
And here's an interesting thing:
folk music can tell you an awful lot
about the cultural DNA of the country from which it originates.
You see, we in Britain are quietly melancholic.
You know the rain, it does rain, the food's not so good.
Quietly melancholic. Not blackly so, just quietly so.
And as Shakespeare put it so brilliantly in "Twelfth Night",
he loves music that has "a dying fall".
So this melody, "Green Sleeves", is chock-full of "dying fall".
You may know this tune.
(Singing) Ta, ra. ra. ra ra, ra... dying fall.
Ta, ra. ra. ra ra, ra... dying fall.
Ta, ree, ra, ra, ra, ra ... dying fall.
Brief bursts of sunshine, ladies and gentlemen, the chorus.
(Singing)
Okay?
It's like we need some melodic *** in our culture, ladies and gentlemen.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
It goes without saying that we are very much
at the starting gates with this project.
We need your help, we need the global community
to help us deliver this dream,
so that this orchestra can be full steam ahead
by summer 2012.
If you think that there is any way that you can help us,
please, please, get in touch.
And so ladies and gentlemen, it gives me enormous pride, pleasure and joy
to introduce to you, with a short improvization
upon that most melancholic tune, "Green Sleeves",
the first four members of the British Paraorchestra.
(Applause) (Cheers)
(Music)
(Applause)
(Cheers) (Applause)
