Arts
Music
For Kate Levin of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul Minnesota, and Karen Brunwasser of FeelBeit (a community center that bridges divides between East and West Jerusalem), the arts aren’t just a supplement to life — they are a crucial balm to social division. Find out how institutions can harness the power of the arts to strengthen communities in th...
The Afternoon of Conversation is the Aspen Ideas Festival's pinnacle programming moment. Over 2,000 people gather in the Benedict Music Tent, an open-air venue with acoustics that mimic an amphitheater, to hear from global leaders, community change-makers, journalists, politicians, and more. Doors open at 2 p.m.
Why is there resistance to the idea that public funds should be used for art? What does it mean for the stewardship of cultural and educational organizations and the support of individual artists? And how does the relationship between non-profit and commercial culture impact how we value the creative sector?
Afghanistan is a silent nation since the Taliban made it illegal to play, teach, or even listen to music earlier this year. Watch a performance by graduates of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), followed by a conversation with Marin Alsop and Renée Fleming, who supported the evacuation of 273 students and faculty from Kabul in December. David Rubenstein wi...
Legendary, award-winning artist David Byrne joins in conversation with astrophysicist Janna Levin, director of sciences at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Byrne co-created an immersive science theater project opening in Denver in September. Theater of the Mind uses narrative to explore perception, memory, attention, and our sense of self, and incorporates the work of neuroscien...
When voices rise together in song, dancers tango across the floor, or a painter takes to a canvas, they may be engaging in a hobby, a passion, or a career. Most likely, they aren’t thinking about their brain circuitry or the cascading biochemical responses being sparked by their artistic pursuits. But we now have imaging technology and wearable sensors that can capture tha...
In this creative session, global citizen-artist Yo-Yo Ma shares ideas with Eric Liu of Citizen University and the Aspen Institute for how to reimagine our lives and responsibilities in American democracy. Drawing on Ma’s new audio experience “Beginner’s Mind,” which traces his evolution as a musician and a human, this conversation will explore what it means to be a good an...
Musician Jon Batiste has a long history of appearing at the Aspen Ideas Festival, not only playing his unique form of jazz but also musically commemorating the greats of the genre. This thoughtful young talent, who at age 33 has already received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Jazz Museum, shares a special performance from his empty studio in New York City....
Originally recorded by Sydney Pollack over two days at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, LA, in 1972, and then brought to life decades later by producer Alan Elliot, Amazing Grace is a raw and unfettered documentary of the live recording of the incomparable gospel music album. Join us for a screening of the film that captures the majestic Franklin at the h...
“Music City” didn’t look to its stars to reboot Nashville’s story; instead it went to its heart and soul – it’s mostly unknown songwriters who have written some of our biggest hits. Can this strategy be a model for other cities to promote civic change and pride? Hear from the people who helped tell the city’s story and see clips from the award-winning film that brings thes...
In a theatrical, musical, audience-engaging production, Common presents messages of love, forgiveness, healing, and celebration, in his own unique style. Inspired by his very personal memoir, Let Love Have the Last Word, Common takes you on his journey from the opening monologue to a live band concert. This limited-run show is an inspiring, emotional and uplifting experien...
Alarms, intercoms, monitors, and other life-saving hospital equipment batter patients and clinicians alike with noise around the clock. The impact of that cacophony may be hard to measure, but it’s a fair bet that it doesn’t promote well-being. What if the auditory experience in hospitals was more than an assault on the ears? Redesigning the soundscape to make medical equi...
No one knows the restorative power of music better than the musicians who make it (although brain scientists keep learning more). In collaboration with Jazz Aspen Snowmass, well-known artists performing at the June festival talk about the history and origin of the music they perform, share personal stories about their own relationship to music, and riff on its link to heal...
Research supports the idea that creatives of all types are over-represented in the population dealing with mood disorders and other psychiatric challenges. Certainly some of the world’s greatest musical masterpieces were composed by musicians who struggled with mental illness. Was it a source of inspiration for their creativity, or did they turn to art to help them heal? R...
Acoustics, intimacy, clarity: One could argue that how and where we listen to music is as important to the experience as the music itself. “The orchestra has to feel the audience, the audience has to feel the orchestra,” said architect Frank Gehry on his design of the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, which opened in 2017. “When they do that, the orchestra plays better, and th...
Music exists in every human culture and drives a multibillion-dollar industry, and yet the vast majority of people who enjoy music do instinctively, without any formal training. So where does music come from, and what is is good for? Drawing from studies in neuroscience, psychology, clinical science, and data science, Dr. Psyche Loui will discuss why we feel emotions in re...
Born out of gospel, R&B, and jazz in late 1950s America, soul has permeated music culture so thoroughly that its influence can be heard everywhere from modern country music to rock and hip-hop. So what is it about soul, and how did it become a soundtrack to some of our nation’s most defining moments? The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik and Grammy Award-winning artists share —...
Song is an artform that is memorialized in a moment, draws on threads from the past, and grows in power as its message resonates through the future. Join Joe Henry — singer, songwriter, producer, and poet — as he examines how the process of songwriting has everything to do with discovery: discovering the past, discovering tradition, discovering influences, and discovering...
Atlanta-based defense attorney and #BillionDollarLawyer Drew Findling discusses the intersection of criminal justice, race, and hip-hop. These issues, common themes in hip-hop music, reflect deeply rooted societal schisms which play out endlessly in the collateral consequences of criminal conviction and mass incarceration. This session will explore how recent events like M...
What possibilities unfurl when a symphony reaches Skid Row? How does music create healing on a street corner? Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist Vijay Gupta and internationally renowned soprano Camille Zamora are expanding access to classical music through their organizations Street Symphony and Sing for Hope, which bring music out of symphony halls and into the spaces of...