Hello everyone.
As you may or may not have heard, my name is Steffin Johnson
and I play piano.
Now, an interesting thing happens
when I say that to people sometimes.
They immediately think: Art Tatum,
or they think Oscar Peterson, or maybe Herbie Hancock.
And that got me thinking:
"Does music have a color?"
Now I want to make sure I get this out there:
I love the jazz greats!
And Nat King Cole's performance
of "Tea for Two" on YouTube will change your life!
I'm probably responsible for half the views
on that video myself. (Laughter)
But I'm much more of a Mozart player, which I owe to my mother.
She just got me introduced to classical music at a young age.
So, I have a story for you guys.
Currently, I study at the Jacobs School of Music
in Indiana University.
And on my very first day there,
I heard someone playing in the recital hall.
It was amazing! I was like this was probably
this world famous professor or performer or something.
So I was like "I'm going to check it out."
I run over to the window and I peek in, right?
Ah! It's a student!
And the dude is a savage!
He's all over the place! He's got like 13 arms.
He's like an octopus! He's just like --
And my honest thought was that's absolutely not cool at all!
Actually, I didn't want to hear that --
to be my first person that I hear there.
I'm in way over my head!
So, now I'm going to fast forward a couple days.
I'm in the practice building.
What you've got to know about the practice building is it's a circle.
and there's another circle inside.
It's like a concrete doughnut.
There's no windows, no natural light gets in;
It's like a tomb of music. All right?
So, I'm in there and I'm practicing this piece --
(Piano)
And I'm getting kind of frustrated! I'd been there for hours.
It's not working how I want it to work. I need to take a break.
So, I open the door and standing right there is the guy
that I saw playing on the first day.
He's messing around on his phone.
Now, he's never seen me before
and he doesn't know that I saw him playing earlier.
So, we meet eyes and we do the guy thing -- ah, uh, oh, uh.
So we walk off and I'm coming back.
Now, you don't actually need to know this part of the story,
but it's a circle building, there are no distinguishing marks.
I got lost! It took too long to get back to the room.
I don't know what the problem was. I finally get back
and he's still standing out there messing around on his phone.
So, I'll go back in and I start practicing again.
(Piano)
Boom!
The dude just busts in my door!
And I'm like, "Hey, man, I think there's some explanation
that's needed here, you just gave me a mild coronary.
I need to understand what's happening right now."
And he says, "I hope you don't take offense to this,
but you are the first black person I have ever heard
playing music like that."
Now, I wasn't offended. He just said how he felt.
And to be honest, we actually became pretty good friends.
So. Now, I'm going to take you back in time.
1905.
Maurice Ravel is a French Impressionistic composer.
And actually that piece I was playing is by Maurice Ravel.
And that kind of washes sound as your traditional
impressionistic sound, right?
So, in 1905 he writes a set of pieces called "Miroirs".
There are five in the set.
But the fourth one is particularly interesting,
because it is a Spanish piece.
This is a stark contrast
to the calm watery-like sound of Impressionism.
And it's much more of a clean kind of --
He's evoking the Spanish idioms
of the Flamenco guitar and all this stuff.
So, without further ado,
I, Steffin Johnson, hopefully changing your perceptions
of what the classical musician can look like,
will play a piece from a composer
who changed perceptions with his music:
Maurice Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso.
(Piano)
(Cheers) (Aplause)