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)