Charles Hazlewood + British Paraorchestra: The debut of the British Paraorchestra
The British Paraorchestra is the first orchestra for world-class musicians of disability Full bioCharles Hazlewood - Conductor
Charles Hazlewood dusts off and invigorates classical music, adding a youthful energy and modern twists to centuries-old masterworks. At TEDGlobal, he conducts the Scottish Ensemble. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
language that we have,
to a child in South Africa.
between those two children,
truths from that melody.
music has this universality,
to each and every one of us,
of holding up a mirror to us
let's call them orchestras --
of the community.
forward to the future --
to go in the other direction for a minute,
50 years into the past,
at all the great orchestras
every orchestra on the planet
between the sexes.
say, "Totally logical."
of the community?
in the great orchestras of our world?
around the world all the time,
musicians I've encountered
aren't millions upon millions
of disability around the world.
that creates a space for them
with other great musicians?
as you can probably tell,
a personal root to it.
was born with cerebral palsy.
her glorious existence,
a fully paid-up member
disabled community.
at the Paralympics
an incredible model that is.
comes to London next year,
person anywhere on the planet
in the validity of disabled sportspeople.
where the hell is music in all this?
who are sports fans,
universal than sport.
Where is their voice?
stages in forming what will be
national disabled orchestra.
the British Paraorchestra,
on London next year
that is represented there,
a multiplicity of paraorchestras
that the first four members
of which the number will grow and grow.
could even be as big as 50 musicians.
a little sonic adventure,
whimsy, if you like,
the ink is still wet,
is never a fixed thing.
to share with you,
of British people.
folk music can tell you an awful lot
from which it originates.
are quietly melancholic.
brilliantly in "Twelfth Night,"
is chock-full of "dying fall."
na na nee, na ah ah ah ah.
and gentlemen, the chorus --
da da da da, dying fall ...
in our culture, ladies and gentlemen.
at the starting gates with this project.
the global community
can be full steam ahead
that you can help us,
me enormous pride, pleasure and joy
with a short improvisation
tune, "Greensleeves,"
of the British Paraorchestra.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
British Paraorchestra - Contemporary music ensembleThe British Paraorchestra is the first orchestra for world-class musicians of disability
Why you should listen
Charles Hazlewood is a conductor founded the British Parorchestra to give musicians of disability a platform to collaborate and perform.
Credits for the debut British Paraorchestra performance: Dhanoday Srivastava (Baluji), James Risdon, Clarence Adoo, Lyn Levett. Alison Roberts tell a few of their stories in her Evening Standard piece on the Paraorchestra:
Clarence Adoo, for example, who used to play trumpet with Courtney Pine, suffered a devastating car accident in 1995 and is now paralysed from the shoulders down. He plays music on a laptop, using a specially designed blow tube as a computer mouse. Adoo says he'd rather be able to play an instrument again than walk.
Lyn Levett has severe cerebral palsy and can only communicate by pressing an iPad with her nose, yet makes the "most dizzyingly brilliant electronic music", says Hazlewood. Levett herself, through her iPad, tells us that when she's creating music, it feels as though she's in a cockpit, flying a plane. Sitar player and composer Baluji Shrivastav has been blind since the age of eight months, and Lloyd Coleman is both deaf and sight-impaired. All four make their living solely from music.
British Paraorchestra | Speaker | TED.com
Charles Hazlewood - Conductor
Charles Hazlewood dusts off and invigorates classical music, adding a youthful energy and modern twists to centuries-old masterworks. At TEDGlobal, he conducts the Scottish Ensemble.
Why you should listen
Charles Hazlewood's fresh presentations of classical music shake up the traditional settings of the form -- in one performance he’ll engage in a conversation with the audience, while in another he’ll blend film or sculpture into a piece -- but his goal is always the same: exposing the deep, always-modern joy of the classics. He's a familiar face on British TV, notably in the 2009 series The Birth of British Music on BBC2. He conducts the BBC Orchestras and guest-conducts orchestras around the world.
Together with Mark Dornford-May, he founded a lyric-theatre company in South Africa called Dimpho Di Kopane (which means "combined talents") after auditioning in the townships and villages of South Africa. Of the 40 members, only three had professional training. They debuted with Bizet's Carmen, which was later transposed into a movie version called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, spoken and sung in Xhosa, that was honored at the Berlin Flim Festival. He regularly involves children in his projects and curates his own music festival, Play the Field, on his farm in Somerset. His latest project: the ParaOrchestra.
He says: "I have loads of issues with the way classical music is presented. It has been too reverential, too 'high art' -- if you're not in the club, they're not going to let you join. It's like The Turin Shroud: don't touch it because it might fall apart."
Charles Hazlewood | Speaker | TED.com