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[Applause]
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thank you so so much for that warm round
of applause I speak for myself and my
colleagues here when I tell you how
thrilled and honored we are to be here
to perform for you this evening at TEDx
Maplewood when I was asked to say a few
words I couldn't help but think about
some important if not profound lessons
that are found in collaboration with a
chamber music ensemble that I believe
can be shared a little more broadly
again my friends and colleagues here are
some of the most world-renowned
trombonist you've probably actually
heard them perform before if you've been
to the New York Philharmonic or the
Metropolitan Opera a Broadway show or
even listen carefully to movie
soundtracks everybody on this stage has
spent thousands of hours working to
perfect our crafts finding our own
unique sound and everybody here has a
very different sound from one another
and playing across all different musical
genre but we wouldn't have been able to
play with that beautiful blended sound
that you just heard right now unless
each one of us didn't compromise or
sacrifice a lot of actually what makes
us special I want to demonstrate that to
you for a second with my friends and
we're gonna play a few moments of a
piece that we're gonna end the evening
with tonight and to show you that just
because great musicians get together at
the same time in the same place to do
the same thing doesn't necessarily make
it collaborative and it certainly
doesn't ensure that the product is going
to be beautiful so as you can see
everybody is going to move around here
so they can't see each other very well
and they're putting earplugs in so they
can't hear each other very well either
but I've asked each one of them to make
sure that they play their part as
beautifully and so listicle E as they
possibly can let's see how that goes
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so that was interesting if you were like
me your eyes and your ears
probably darted around to each
individual player I mean after all there
was actually some very good playing
going on but I probably don't need to
tell you it lacked any kind of real
cohesiveness because what everybody was
doing was the most important thing in
the room at that time so we're back in a
semi-circle so everybody can see each
other and I hope the earplugs are out
and we're gonna perform that same piece
while the musicians are going to be
highly cognizant of who has the most
important line and who has the
supporting lines etc let's hear how that
sounds
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in case you weren't clapping that was
better so so we all bring the sum total
of our life experiences to the
collaborative table the good the bad and
the ugly and we use those experiences in
order to make real-time decisions in
order to benefit the greater
organization that's what makes
collaboration so unbelievably incredible
everybody brings something completely
different but when it comes together the
right way it can be phenomenal that's
what makes collaboration in a chamber
music ensemble so great and perhaps
that's a model of collaboration and
leadership we need to make other areas
of our life great as well so it's our
normal as musicians to be prepared to
give of ourselves when we get together
to collaborate that idea of stepping
back and accompanying and supporting
somebody else taken the lead instead of
fighting for that is not a sign of
weakness it's a sign of strength of
confidence of leadership and of a desire
to be part of something far bigger than
ourselves that's our normal as musicians
and I wonder what life would be like if
that was our normal as a society we're
going to finish the evening by playing a
piece by johann sebastian bach a
passaglia and C minor originally written
for a pipe organ over 300 years ago and
everyone on the stage here has a very
small yet crucial task of representing
the fingers or the hands or even the
feet of the organist who is supposed to
originally be performing this piece so I
hope you enjoy watching us collaborate
for you and again thank you so much for
having us here this evening
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you
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all right