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Hello everyone.

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As you may or may not have heard,
my name is Steffin Johnson

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and I play piano.

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Now, an interesting thing happens 


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when I say that to people sometimes.

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They immediately think: Art Tatum,

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or they think Oscar Peterson, 
or maybe Herbie Hancock.

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And that got me thinking:

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"Does music have a color?"

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Now I want to make sure
I get this out there:

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I love the jazz greats!

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And Nat King Cole's performance

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of "Tea for Two" on YouTube
will change your life!

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I'm probably responsible
for half the views

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on that video myself. (Laughter)

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But I'm much more of a Mozart player, 
which I owe to my mother.

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She just got me introduced to 
classical music at a young age.

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So, I have a story for you guys.

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Currently, I study at 
the Jacobs School of Music

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in Indiana University.

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And on my very first day there,

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I heard someone playing 
in the recital hall.

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It was amazing! 
I was like this was probably

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this world famous professor 
or performer or something.

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So I was like
"I'm going to check it out."

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I run over to the window 
and I peek in, right?

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Ah! It's a student!

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And the dude is a savage!

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He's all over the place! 
He's got like 13 arms.

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He's like an octopus! 
He's just like --

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And my honest thought was
that's absolutely not cool at all!

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Actually, I didn't want to hear that --

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to be my first person that I hear there.

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I'm in way over my head!

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So, now I'm going to fast forward 
a couple days.

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I'm in the practice building.

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What you've got to know about 
the practice building is it's a circle.

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and there's another circle inside.

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It's like a concrete doughnut.

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There's no windows, 
no natural light gets in;

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It's like a tomb of music. All right?

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So, I'm in there 
and I'm practicing this piece --

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(Piano)

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And I'm getting kind of frustrated!
I'd been there for hours.

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It's not working how I want it to work.
I need to take a break.

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So, I open the door 
and standing right there is the guy

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that I saw playing on the first day.

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He's messing around on his phone.

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Now, he's never seen me before

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and he doesn't know 
that I saw him playing earlier.

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So, we meet eyes and we do
the guy thing -- ah, uh, oh, uh.

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So we walk off and I'm coming back.

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Now, you don't actually need to know 
this part of the story,

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but it's a circle building, 
there are no distinguishing marks.

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I got lost! It took too long 
to get back to the room.

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I don't know what the problem was.
I finally get back

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and he's still standing out there
messing around on his phone.

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So, I'll go back in 
and I start practicing again.

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(Piano)

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Boom!

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The dude just busts in my door!

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And I'm like, "Hey, man,
I think there's some explanation

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that's needed here, 
you just gave me a mild coronary.

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I need to understand 
what's happening right now."

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And he says, "I hope 
you don't take offense to this,

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but you are the first black person 
I have ever heard

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playing music like that."

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Now, I wasn't offended.
He just said how he felt.

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And to be honest, we actually 
became pretty good friends.

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So. Now, I'm going to take you
back in time.

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1905.

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Maurice Ravel is 
a French Impressionistic composer.

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And actually that piece I was playing 
is by Maurice Ravel.

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And that kind of washes sound 
as your traditional

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impressionistic sound, right?

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So, in 1905 he writes a set of pieces 
called "Miroirs".

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There are five in the set.

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But the fourth one
is particularly interesting,

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because it is a Spanish piece.

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This is a stark contrast

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to the calm watery-like sound 
of Impressionism.

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And it's much more of a clean kind of --

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He's evoking the Spanish idioms

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of the Flamenco guitar and all this stuff.

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So, without further ado,

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I, Steffin Johnson, 
hopefully changing your perceptions

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of what the classical musician 
can look like,

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will play a piece from a composer

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who changed perceptions with his music:

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Maurice Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso.

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(Piano)

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(Cheers) (Aplause)