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The Indian-born tabla player and composer, teacher, and advocate Zakir Hussain, son of Ustad Alla Rahka, who passed away in late 2024, wasn't just a virtuoso improviser - he was one of the world's exceptional percussionists, working in many genres, and was the world's preeminent tabla master. He was a great communicator in many musical languages, including jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, Nigerian talking drums, or Indonesian gamelan; he was also a great listener and a bringer of joy (editor can't help herself.) One of the most exciting ways that Zakir Hussain shared tabla specifically, and percussion more broadly was by way of the Masters of Percussion Tour – which was exactly as stunning and marvelous as a music fan (especially a drum nerd) might ever imagine. Zakir turned the tabla into a global instrument by way of his incredible collaborations, playing with everyone from George Harrison to Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, from John McLaughlin's Shakti and Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project; he's laid down beats for Scottish fiddlers Charlie McKerron (Capercaillie) and Patsy Reid (formerly of Breabach); played concertos with western orchestras, with and without banjo player Bela Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer, and performed and recorded with scores of Indian classical musicians. Zakir Hussain enjoyed the different challenges that each new collaborator “will throw at him”. For this edition of the Soundcheck Podcast, Ustad Zakir Hussain joined Pandit Rahul Sharma, the son of illustrious santoor master Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, who established the pedigree of the santoor within Indian Classical Music. Pt. Rahul Sharma has since built on his father's style, “taking the santoor to new corners of the world”, (Darbar.org). Rahul Sharma has also collaborated widely across genres, having released some 60 albums, split between classical Indian music and more experimental recordings. Rahul Sharma and Zakir Hussain played in-studio in Oct of 2024, just about six weeks before Hussain passed away. - Caryn Havlik Set list: 1. Dhun: Misra Pahadi 2. Dhun Keharwa Sharma explains the roots of the santoor, and gives a quick demonstration of its 94 strings which require precise tuning: Zakir Hussain also gave an intimidatingly fast explainer of some of the syllables of tabla, what the left and right hand might do, with unbelievable and impressive speed: See their performances:
144 - Ed Sweeney In episode 144 of “Have Guitar Will Travel”, presented by Vintage Guitar Magazine, host, James Patrick Regan speaks with guitarist and banjo player Ed Sweeney. In their conversation Ed tells us about his Christmas album “Inside Fezziwig's, the Spirit of Christmas Past”, my favorite Christmas Album. Ed has generously offered it as free as a download on his website through the end of the year. We're sure you will love it! Ed talks about his home life in Rhode Island, growing up in Lexington, Kentucky and his early musical education. As well as the many moves his family made while he was growing up. Ed discusses taking guitar lessons from the blind blues singer Paul Pena and becoming Providence College's first-ever music major. Ed tells us about the instruments he plays, 6- and 12-string guitar, 5-string banjo, and fretless banjo and the companies and people who made those instruments. Ed tells us how he hooked up with documentarian Ken Burns and with Disney which is quite remarkable. Ed also tells us about spending 14 years as Finance Director of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. Ed discusses who he's listening too right now and who inspires him. Finally Ed talks about playing live shows and teaching lessons. You can find out all you'd like to know about Ed at his website edsweeneymusic.com and he's active on Facebook. Please subscribe, like, comment, share and review this podcast! #VintageGuitarMagazine #EdSweeney #EdSweeneyMusic #MartinGuitar #InsideFezziwigs #Christmas #ChristmasMusic #theDeadlies #Banjo #FretlessBanjo #haveguitarwilltravelpodcast #hgwt #HGWT . . . Please like, comment, and share this podcast! Download Link
The Option Genius Podcast: Options Trading For Income and Growth
This is part 2 of my interview with John S Pennington Jr. Make sure to listen to Part 1 first. Allen It seems like I mean, because all the stuff you're mentioning, you know, Ray Dalio in his books, he talks about it too, you know, like, how does one Empire take over from another one? And it's because of the the currency, it's because of you know, and he's been talking about it for a while that there's a collision course coming. And everybody's afraid of it. You know, I mean, I'm even afraid of it. Because if we go to war in 10 years from now, you know, I have two boys that are 13 and 11, they're probably going to be drafted because everybody in the United States is overweight, and they can't fight it. So there's got to be some, right? There's gonna be some serious problem with the Army not having enough people. So my kids are gonna be fighting in a war. I don't want them fighting in and like, everybody's freaking out about it. And like you said, you know, China, they brokered the deal. They're making friends in the Middle East. They're making friends in Africa. They're giving loans like you said, US gave loans to everybody. They gave loans in trillions of dollars, not even billions, but I think it was trillions of worth of loans to build infrastructure in Africa that is then maintained owned and run by Chinese. It's not run by the Africans, the Chinese are in charge of it, the Silk Road Project that they built those highways all the way from China all the way to the, you know, the Mediterranean. I mean, yeah, they've been doing it crazy. And so it seems like everything that you're saying it lines up. And it's like, now that we see John last year in the last year and a half, while the last few months, India has stopped on some level, not all the way stopped buying Russian oil. They just read some reports this last month that they have, they have curbed their Russian oil purchases. Really. Okay. Now, I don't know exactly why. But I do know, there's tons of companies that have moved from China, to South Korea, Thailand, and India. And I believe India is now choosing Wait a minute, we want to be in good graces with the United States because that's where we're going to suck up all those jobs on China. They're going to come to India. Right. And I think India's Modi, President Modi over there is making a strategic move to go with you know, the US dollar and to do that he's got to appease the the United States by saying you know what, Russia, we even though your oil is cheaper, doesn't matter. We're gonna go with US dollar purchases for oil. That Allen could be because China is also having territorial disputes now with India over certain areas. It's funny because we have a an oil Options program where we train, we do coaching on oil options, and we you could see it in the news play out when Russia was putting all their tanks on the border of Ukraine, you know, everybody knew it, they're coming in, they're going to invade and everybody was like, when is it gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? I told her, I'll tell all my traders it's like, you know, just wait. It's not going to happen until the Olympics are open. Olympics are over because the Olympics are in China is like they have the closing ceremonies, like four hours later, boom, there's an invasion. It's like, okay, now we can play it now. It's, you know, it's, yeah, he was insane. So now you said, now I'm trying to figure out like, okay, alright, how can I make money off of this? Right. So it's like you said that Russia and China are still buying gold. So is that? Is that an investment that's going to continue to ramp up because I think gold is at all time highs right now? John Yeah, it's all time high. Silver is kind of trying to get up there. But Silver's having a tough time. So let's go to Okay, let's go to the summer of 2020. All right, summer 2020. The SEC, which is part of the team, you have the team, you know, US dollar, the SEC sues JP Morgan. What are they suing him for? They're suing him for manipulating the precious metals market for nine years. Silver gold, okay. And they lose, JPMorgan loses and they're fined almost a billion dollars a billion dollar fine for nine years and mutilation the SEC. Okay. The point is, JP Morgan figured out how to manipulate and control a market that's 30 times bigger than Bitcoin. Gold and silver and gold for nine years. And they finally SEC found out about it pseudonym wins, finds you billion dollars, but guess what, no one that I know of went to jail. Allen I mean, it wasn't that big in the news, they get headlines, John kind of kept quiet, right. So millions of people that buy and sell silver and gold were fleeced out of how know how many much money but no one goes to jail. But you just find they probably made 20 billion but they're only find a billion it was it was 930 million, but I rounded a billion because we talked about a billion seconds earlier. Right? Okay, so nine 30 million, but close to a billion dollars. All right. So my theory in my book that I explain is you have precious metals market that have been manipulated through using futures and all kinds of different manipulations. And a year from there, now you're in summer of 2021. Bitcoin is trading around $31,000. This is July. Okay. So August, September, October, November, four months later, Bitcoin hits all time high $69,000. My theory is that the Federal Reserve, US government viewed Bitcoin as a competitor possible to the US dollar. And so they took the playbook that they learned from JP Morgan, and I think they had JP Morgan personnel help them do it right. Clandestine to control try to control Bitcoin. And that's why it went from 31,000 to 16,000 in a four, three and a half month period of time. So November it hits $69,000. And so how are the way that you control Bitcoin? Well, one JP Morgan used a futures market. Okay, now what I'm about to tell you all these things that I'm gonna tell you happen in November 2021. Okay, one bitcoin hits all time high. Number two, the SEC approves a Bitcoin ETF not I first bought only four futures right and they denied grayscale the spot one Why would you approve one for futures and not one for spot doesn't make any sense. So that happened November also, also November and Allen hold that for people who are listening to spot means the current price futures means prices in advance. So the actual the actual Bitcoin John not a Hypothecation the actual non derivative, the actual Bitcoin, right? So the SEC says no you can't you can't operate, we're not gonna allow you to operate a ETF that actually buys Bitcoin, we're only going to allow this other company, an ETF that actually buys futures on contracts, right just contracts, which is the what the way JP Morgan was one of the ways they were able to manipulate the silver and gold market for nine years. Okay, that's the third thing that happened in November, the SEC extends their lawsuit against a ripple XRP coin. Why XRP from the nanosecond XRP was invented. Its one goal was what to do to circumvent the SWIFT system, which would decrease the demand for US dollars. So the SEC extends the EC the lawsuit for no apparent reason. And they just kind of lost it. They lost the SEC last last summer, and then they appealed. So they're this lawsuit still going on against XRP? Okay, a former thing that happened in this month, in November, Hillary Clinton came out and said, Bitcoin could damage the US dollars, reserve world currency. Now, again, back to probabilities and predictions, you can say she just went to a microphone and just talking. That's you can believe that, or what's the is that a probability high probability? Or is the probability that she had been privy to previous meetings months earlier, that the Federal Reserve was going to try to pinch Bitcoin control, they don't want to kill it, they just want to control it. And so she got in front of microphone, which she loves to do to tell all her memes. Hey, listen to me, I always know the truth. I always give you the truth. Guess what the Bitcoin could take over the US currency, which is our number one product and why so he's she's sending a coded message, maybe? Maybe not. But the probability, I think the probability is high that she had some information that the government was using a clandestine approach to try to control Bitcoin, Allen because she was a congresswoman and she was sitting on committees and all that, yes, yes. John One other way you can control a traded commodity or traded stock or whatever or bitcoin is if you can get 45 to 60 days of trading volume, meaning if if bitcoin trades 100 coins a day, you would need 4500 coins. If it trades 1000 coins a day, you would need 45,000 coins are 60,000 coins. This is what how you do it. So let's just say hypothetically, that from July 2021 to November 2021, the Federal Reserve had to obtain 45 days of trading bonds 66 days trading bond that means they have to buy bitcoin. They're buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin buying Bitcoin, that means the price is going up, up, up, up up. Once they have 45 or six days of trading volume, they take their 45 Day Trading bond, and they stick it at six $9,000. And they put it there for sale, all this at a limit price 60,000 or so we start buying you buy I buy we're buying. And then we keep hitting 69 69,006 96 Night Out signal, there's a ceiling, there's a price ceiling, the ceiling, and we can see it and we go Wait, there's a big seller at 16,000 or so mean, you start selling. So we start selling everyone starts selling and it goes down to 68,000. Guess who's buying at 60,000 The Federal Reserve, they're replenishing their 60 day supply or 45 day supply of trading volume. So that mean you go Wait, there's a buyer at 68,000 and we start buying again. And it goes to 68,000. They don't let it go to 69 because that would be a bullish chart, right? They can have a they can have a higher high. They can have a lower high and they put their 45 day trading volume boom right there as 68,800 and they start selling and same thing happens. We sell and it goes down. That's one way you can control a market right now. So lately as we know, Bitcoin has hit a new all time high. Yeah. And so maybe maybe what happened was, this is there's another hypothesis. Maybe they realized they alone couldn't do it. Okay. So last summer, the SEC basically told 11 companies Listen, we're going to approve 11 companies all at the same time to try A Bitcoin spot and ETF spot so they approved 11 ETFs to trade Bitcoin spot. Now, what I think happened in October, Bitcoin was trading 31,000 27,000 31,000 31,000 27,000 27,000 If Gessner of the head of the SEC told them Hey, guess what we're going to do? In a few months we're going to let you guys start trading Bitcoin what you guys should do is buy a Bitcoin to control the market. So Bitcoin went from 27,000 to sweat 72,000 Something like that. Right? Yeah, today, but I'm saying I'm saying on January I think was January 11. Okay, all the Bitcoin went up 11 Bitcoin went alive, right? Okay. Now think about what just happened on January 11. There are record number of buying a Bitcoin record number. And in 11, or 12 days, it goes from, from where it's at down to $39,000. Why there's a record number of buyers, it should go up. But wait, if all the ETFs bought at 31,000, knee ETFs, bought at 32,000 35,000 42,000 If they were buying it, so that when the ETFs went live, they could sell it to you. That's why the price went down. There's no other there's no other explanation. Because if they had bought zero, when a record numbers came in to buy bitcoin, they would have to take your US dollars and go buy Bitcoin that would go up, the way it goes down. It went down like 18% in 11 days with record inflows, that means that I believe BlackRock and all the other 1011 ETFs are in on the game of manipulation of Bitcoin, right? And so this is back to my theory that no matter what it is, if it's the yuan, or if it's gold, if it's Bitcoin, and it and it has the potential of damaging the number one product of all time, the Federal Reserve, the US Navy, the president, the SEC, the IRS, even the CIA, that's their number one job. Now, a lot of times Congress forgets their number one job. Allen I was gonna ask you about that, too. I was like Congress get the memo. Because yeah, John they don't get it. But but but people criticize. Powell had the federal they criticized him all the time. I don't. I think he's doing a great job. Listen, if we went back in time, okay, we'll go back in time, Alan, we're going back to 30 years, okay. 30 years ago, I said, you're going to be the head of the Federal Reserve. Okay. And I'm going to be Congress, right? Your job is to protect and promote the US dollar. And all I do that Congress, I spend trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion, I spend a trillion. And I say to you, hey, figure out how to pay for it. Right? So you can criticize Powell all you want. But man, he's still we still are 58% of the world reserve currency. And the Congress doesn't stop spending. It's like a couple. You have a couple one spouse spends tons of money on credit cards, and they turn the other spouse pay for it. Right. And Powell must be just for it. If I was I'd be screwed top my lungs, would you guys stop spending? All you got to stop because I'm doing my best to keep this number one product afloat around the world. I'm doing my best. Right. And so I don't criticize Powell. I've actually under the circumstances, I think he's doing a fantastic job, even though people call him stupid. People don't like what he says. But I don't listen to what he says. I just listen when he does. And I and I realize he has a partner called the US Congress. Who is there just out of control spending? Yep. And he's done it. He's doing a great job by keeping our agreements accepted around the world. Yeah, Allen I agree with you. I mean, you know, after COVID, and all that money that was spent on everything, you know, to maintain it to not even go into recession to have Yeah, inflation was a it could have been a lot worse than who it was. Without all that spending all that money that's just unaccounted for. So John I think right now, the Congress is spending about $1 trillion every four or five months, six months. That's, that's, that's what's going on right now. That's just amazing. So back to your question. As you can tell, I have long answers. Gold, silver, Bitcoin real estate, okay. If you keep spending a trillion dollars every six months, additionally, items are going to go up in price. Gold, silver, Bitcoin, eventually, it's just going to bubble up you. It's kind of you almost can't stop it. Right. wheat, wheat soybeans, I mean, real estate farmland, if you just give a trillion dollars every six months, and how long can the us do this? I bet they can. You know, look, look the US Dollar might be the greatest Ponzi scheme ever invented a headline, it might it might be, but this is the thing. There is no mathematical way to taper a large Ponzi scheme, it can't be done. So therefore, the only way to play it all out is to play it all the way through. Okay, just to play it out, right? Let's don't get mad at me. I didn't create this. I was born into this system. Right? I am pro US dollar. Why? Because I'm in the Ponzi scheme, because all of our money is in US dollars. I don't want to wake up tomorrow morning and have the US dollar at zero because I will be broke. My parents will be living in my basement. My kids who live in my basement way my my house would be for sale because I'd be broke because everything I have almost is in US dollars. Right? Bait US dollar based, right? I have some bitcoin I have some gold. I have some real estate, right. But it's US dollar base. You too. We're we're in the Ponzi scheme. Okay. So therefore I think with the US think about the US Navy, think about the powers think about everything they could they could for what proliferate this for another 20 3050 years. They are very powerful. The Federal Reserve is the most powerful entity, along with the US Navy, along with the IRS along with the SEC along with the President. They are incredible team. And look, look, you know, China, only having 2.7% 2.7% of the world reserve currency, and we have 58% and the Euros 20%. And they got it they got a big mountain to climb, right, and they can climb it, but it's gonna take a long time. But the problem is this. Again, China is now printing more money than we're printing. Because they're in a they're in a 1929 depression right now. It's bad over there. Unemployment is youth unemployment, ages 18 to 30. is so bad China stopped reporting it. That's how bad it is. They don't report it anymore. Yeah, the estimates they have, if you are a college aged kid in China, college, graduated kid in China, and you're in a big city. This is 18 to 30 years old, okay? You graduate in college, and you have a job. Your average salary is $700 to $950 a month. Wow. That's the average salary right now in a big city. In China. They're in a 1929 depression. So they're not going to fix this in one to six months. It's going to be years to fix this in China. And the US is, I believe, putting pencils on them trying to even control them because they're sending a message to Saudi Arabia. Anyway, so this is people go man, John, you really got a lot of information, like you just said, you have all this information. And you put together like a puzzle, right? And it's conspiracy theory. And I go, it might be I might be totally wrong. But it just keeps fitting together. The more I put more puzzle pieces together, they keep fitting. Yeah. So Allen I have another question. And this is about a different commodity. Now, we talked a little bit of we talked about how the Fed control the prices of Bitcoin, how the Fed is controlled, trying to try and try to trying to or and how it's handling other issues. What do you think? Do you or do you think that they're doing something similar to oil prices? Because it's not oil? Yeah. It's not directly tied to the dollar, but it is tied to the economy. And yeah, John yeah. So I remember when President Biden took office is first thing he did was he turned off the Keystone pipeline to Canada. And I was like, why? Allen environmental reasons, right? Why John would you do that? And I put the US dollar in, wait a minute, we have to buy some oil from Saudi Arabia. So we, as a gesture to Saudi Arabia, to keep oil prices up, we turn off the Keystone pipeline to reduce oil here in North America, so that Saudi Arabia can have a better something like that. And they you know, there is some type of manipulation a little bit around the world, but oil is huge, right? Everyone's got a little bit oil and some kinds of we have a lot of oil for some reason. Saudi Arabia has a lot. Russia has a lot. And so but I would say to you that oil is a commodity base is every once in a while manipulated, but you know, turning off spigots reduces supply, which increases so but what's happened is for the oil trader, your old traders the next 510 years, maybe five years, everyone has gone green, and they're making solar panels and windmills in Germany, right. And they've been the last, you know, since that big huge problem that we had in that tidal wave in Japan. With that nuclear reactor over there, that nuclear power plant, everyone went away from nuclear. So we went through this last winter I believe there were power outages or power Our reductions in Germany, Canada, there are places that just had was worried about their power being right. And so what happens is, so many people have swung over to the green agenda, which is a good thing. They've left the agenda in buying Chevron and Exxon Mobil, and they've left they've left, and so at Chevron, Exxon Mobil have stopped or reduced their exploration because they don't have as much money. Right? Okay. And therefore, that's going to keep oil prices higher. So what the green initiative has done is encouraged oil prices to be higher, because they've reduced the amount of money that can explore and extract more oil. So they've reduced it, therefore there's less of it, therefore, oil will be higher in the future. And I know, Saudis have turned down their spigot lately, you know, for the oil. And so I know that's happening. But oil is a long term play, mostly for me. It's a long term play, but I just kind of try to find the trend. And it seems like, to me the trend is up in general, because of what I just explained. Makes Allen sense. Yeah. I mean, I tell people that you know, back in the day, the rich man used to have an engine, like a car with an engine and everybody else was on horses, right? Yeah. And then it became commonplace. And then it became the rich man had the electric vehicle, because he had to be rich to have a and then now it's gonna flip and it's gonna be like, Okay, now the rich guy has the combustible engine, and everybody else is driving the electric vehicles. And the really John rich man has a horse. He hasn't a stable. You guys once a month. You know what I mean? Exactly. Back to the horse. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Allen Cool. All right. So I do want to wrap it up with going into the future now, because we you know, you mentioned conspiracy theory. And now this one is, I see it coming. But the US digital dollar. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So let's do I want to hear on stage. John You've heard me on stage on stage, I show a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was a bodybuilder. And I show when he's an actor, and I show him as a governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger reinvented himself three times. The US dollar has to reinvent itself. It was gold in 1933. It was the Bretton Woods, you know, we will back the the French franc in 1944. In 1971, it turned into the Fiat dollar of the petro dollar. And now it's going to go into the digital age. And it's coming, I just don't know how long it's going to take for them to manufacture a crisis, that we will accept the US digital dollar, they have to have a crisis versus except for right now. No one wants to accept it. Because once you accept it, everyone knows what you spent your money on. Right? Because right Allen now, I mean, you have credit cards, and you have wire transfers. And so like, what's the point? Why do we need that right? Well, John but I can pay cash for something, and you don't know what I bought. Right? Right. And so but but once the digital dollar hits, and it's mandatory, everything, you know, there won't be there won't be I can imagine there won't be a tax return anymore. If you buy something at Walmart, the nanosecond, you buy it, a few pennies will go to Washington DC, every single day. And if you're buying Chinese goods, there's 17 pennies that go to Washington DC. If you're buying US goods, there's four pennies go into wash DC every time you buy something. So if you if you transfer money from your phone to your kids, so they can buy lunch at school today, every time you transfer money, there's two pennies going to go. So there's no tax returns. Everyone knows or not everyone, the federal government would know everything you spend your money on, where you spend your money. And they might say Well, that would reduce drug trafficking, that will reduce illegal activities that reduce a lot of things because everything is tracked, there is no gold, there is no silver, there is no Bitcoin, we have to outlaw it. And it might be and I hypothecate In my book, let's go to May 2033. That's the 100th anniversary of the gold confiscation that people said no, that can never happen America Well, in 1933. In May, they confiscated all our gold. And in May 19 In May 2033, it might come to the point where for the good of the country, the country is in so big of debt. If we could just collect all of our taxes from our citizens, we could pay our bills, but we can't because too many people are using gold. Too many people are using Bitcoin too many people are using cash and we can't track that and and that's how people cheat on their taxes. But if we switched to the US digital dollar, no one can cheat on their taxes. When they buy a boat we know it when they pay for lunch, we know it right and we collect our taxes, therefore as to be patriotic. Everyone must have if you own a business you no longer accept cash You know, alongside Bitcoin, you know, because we have to sugar up the US economy, and it's patriotic. And this is this hypothetical, but may 9, may 2033, just 100 year anniversary, it could happen if they can create, and I'm saying create a crisis in the American mind, where we're gonna go bankrupt United States unless we switch the US digital dollar. And that's the savior now. So something like that that's a hypothetical. You might it might be, it might be a cyber attack. You know, I don't know if you remember this, this, I think 2012 Maybe you remember a little country called Cyprus. Allen I know of a John little country called Cyprus, right. on a Monday morning, everyone woke up went to their bank. And the rich people who had I don't know the number, but it was over 100,000 are over 500,000 in their bank, half of their money was gone. The country confiscated half of the savings accounts of our all the rich people, because the country tried to go to the EU over the weekend, because they were bankrupt. and the EU turned them down. They said, Look, we'll give us a loan. They said no. So the EU turned them down. So the only thing that country could do was over the weekend, confiscate half of the money in all the bank and this is digital, this digital dollars, your digital, you can do this. They confiscated half of the money. And they said basically to the people, aren't you glad we did that? Because we wouldn't have done that. Your your your country, you'd have been worth zero. All your money would have been the zero we confiscated half of it, to pay for the government to keep us alive and open so that you could have half your money. This happened in Cyprus. Wow. So, you know, we when you say when you use the word, US government cannot. That's the wrong word. No, there's no Federal Reserve cannot that no, you should use shouldn't, wouldn't. But couldn't isn't a right word. Because in a digital age, everything is possible. They can change laws they can it's when people are desperate. And Money makes people desperate. Or lack of money makes people desperate. Things just happen that you thought could never happen. And I'm sure those people in Cyprus thought it could never happen. But on a Monday morning, it happened. Oh, yeah. She's, Allen I mean, like you mentioned in the book, you talked about the Commerce Clause, right? And yeah, and I remember after 911, the government passed the Patriot Act, you know, it's a great, great name for a bill or a Patriot Act. Yeah. What does it mean? It means basically, if you look at it, they can take anybody off the street, pick you up, throw you in a hole, you have no representation. No, you can't talk to anybody for as long as they want as long as you are under suspicion. And it doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not. And it's like, okay, what happened to our liberties? What happened to the Constitution? Oh, it's not there anymore. Sorry. You know, so yeah, you're right. They can do basically anything. John The word the word cannot, should not be in your sentence with the US government shouldn't wouldn't Yes, but cannot or couldn't. Don't don't say those words together with the US government. As Allen you remember, when Modi took over in India, they had supposedly they had problems with, you know, the mafia and illegal gambling and illegal monies and all that. So he made everybody turn in their higher dollar notes. Yes, exactly. It's like everybody to come into cash and other notes and the people that bring it in, we'll baskets and stuff. So it John he actually it was pretty thought out because he said the poor people need a $1 $5 bill or $10. Bill, the rich people, you don't need hundreds and $500 bills, you can all you do that electronically. You want to transfer large amounts of money, it's electronic. You want to transfer for tips, or you want to pay your guy to shine your shoes or mow your lawn. You still have small bills, because look, it's really hard to transfer $1,000,000,001 bills, because it would take up a whole truckload right? So, so that was Modi's compromise to keep the poor having money in their pocket, and to hinder the rich, or the drug dealers or whoever, for moving large amounts of money. It all has to be electronically because electronically, we can track it. Allen Yeah, so I mean, that could be something that they do here. You know, let's take away the $100. Bill. We used to have $1,000 bills, right, I think yeah, back in the day. Yeah. A John long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Allen So okay, so you're saying that in nine years is 2023 or 33 2033. And you also say in your book that every 10 years, there is some kind of financial catastrophe or collapse or John if you think about it since 1971, okay, we won the fiat currency system. Okay. Okay, and this is roughly nine or 10 years, okay? The economy goes, boom, right? And there's opportunity. So 1971 Give me a few years for the fiat currency to get going. Okay, the petro dollar. In 1988, there was a stock market crash. And soon after that, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crushed. And I took advantage of that I started selling us Levi's, the Eastern Bloc country, okay. 1999 comes around the.com bubble, right. And I missed it. There was a huge opportunity in internet. I knew it was going on, I just couldn't figure out how to make money at it. And it went, boom, and I missed that opportunity. Okay, 99 2000. Then in 2008, nine ish, there was a great recession. And I took great advantage of I started a huge fund that eventually was managing a family of funds, the lost family funds, 2008, that eventually, in 2021, was managing $28 billion assets under management. And today manages like 47 billion. Okay. And then 2020, there was the pandemic, right. And then we launched other funds called, they were called opportunities on funds that had huge tax advantages that we launched funds in that. So about every 10 years or so, since the fiat currency of 1971, the petro dollar, every 10 years, you know, it goes, the economy just goes boom, and boom means there's opportunity. And so a lot of the funds that started in real estate funds that started 289, and 10 made a ton of money, you can still make a lot of money, real estate, but we made a ton of money, because the economy was just blanketed low and we could buy things so cheap in 2009 and 10. It was it was crazy. So Allen I don't know. I mean, we might be close to that timeline, you know, but 10 years and 33. It's somewhere in there. Well, John are 2029, you know, 29? Right in there, right in there. 20 930-228-2930. Right there. That's about 10 more years. That's the tenure since the last one ish, right? Yeah. Allen Do you have anything on your antenna that you're noticing now that would go boom? John Well, again, it might be the US digital dollar that goes into it might be an opportunity there. Because, you know, maybe this is this, this is way out there. But maybe Congress is spending and spending and spending and spending and spending for a lot of reasons. But one reason is to cause a crisis. Well, so that we could be forced to go to the digital dollar. Oh, my right. Yeah, that's just a crazy i That's i That's not my blood, because that's just a crazy theory. But because I can't think I cannot figure out why. What's the purpose of this? Like, I can't figure out why President Biden lets all these illegals coming off our southern border. Yeah, I don't I don't get I know there's a reason. But I don't really understand the reason I'm trying to figure it out. And I haven't figured that one out yet. And yet, I can't figure out why the US Congress can't just stop spending some money. It might just be there's no conspiracy, they just spin spin spin. But it might just there might be another underlying reason. They're trying to force it because they look to get us to go the US digital dollar, there has to be a cyber attack, there has to be some big crisis, something like in Cyprus, that would cause us to go, okay. I'm okay with that. Like right now, we have five and a quarter percentage rates, you know why we're okay with that, because we had 9% inflation. But if we had 1%, inflation, we would never accept a five and a quarter percentage rate. So there has to be some type of crisis to get people to do things they don't want to do. And we no one wants to go to the Digital's digital dollar. But you would in a situation, there's scenarios that you would you would switch Yeah. Allen And at this point, there's no alternative. And the Fed, like you said, is making it that way. And that's their job to make sure there's no alternative. Oh my Well, John, I really appreciate your time we've gone over thank you so much for it. And again really fun, everybody it's dollars gold and Bitcoin available at Amazon, get your copy. And we've touched everything in here. There's more in here that that is also John on audible.com If you'd like my voice, you can listen to me for six hours and because I recorded the whole thing and all the time so if you don't read books, you listen to books, you can continue to listen to Mike scratchy voice for six more hours. Allen Thank you so much. I appreciate you and everything that you've shared with us. John Thank you very much for having me.
Martin Hayes is an internationally renowned Irish fiddler beloved for his expressive playing and his collaborations with many great musicians in different genres including Bill Frisell, Sting, Paul Simon and more recently Yo Yo Ma with the Silk Road Project. During this episode we spoke of his wonderful book Shared Notes, and he plays some beautiful music live (you can always use the timestamps if you're curious to jump to some music right away), but I encourage you to listen through the whole episode. Martin speaks eloquently about life, culture, friendship, identity, and staying true to what you value, and I hope this episode will thrill lovers of Irish music and bring new listeners to many of Martin's projects including The Common Ground Ensemble, The Gloaming, and many more. We talked about the loss and legacy of Dennis Cahill, how he met Thomas Bartlett, the rich depths of traditional music that Martin learned from the older generation, and the rhythm of life growing up on the farm in County Clare. Like all my episodes, this is available as both a video and a podcast on your favourite podcast platform, and the transcript is also linked:https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/martin-hayes Martin's website: http://www.martinhayes.com/ During the episode we talked about the tribute to Dennis Cahill, which I hoped to link directly but can't find now. It's called: Litir ó do Chara Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:33) “Shared Notes” book and Martin's childhood, PJ Hayes, Paddy Canny, Tulla Ceili band and learning fiddle (09:59) the nature of memory and writing the book “Shared Notes” (13:42) fiddle: jigs by Sean Ryan (16:12) different approaches to fiddling with musical demonstrations (23:10) challenges of recording, self-consciousness (25:06) The Common Ground Ensemble (29:51) pandemic reflections, teaching, mindfulness in nature (34:15) fiddle: The Glen of Aherlow (37:28) Dennis Cahill (43:15) Irish diaspora, Irish in America, immigrant experience (48:27) communicating on stage and playing what you want to play instead of what the audience expects (52:49)story about offering money back to disruptive audience (55:35) meeting Thomas Bartlett, The Gloaming (01:02:30) harmonizing Irish music (01:05:46) The Martin Hayes Quartet, Liz Knowles viola d'amore, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (01:08:35) Irish language (01:11:09) Celtic culture in Spain and close cousins musically with different Celtic traditions (01:13:40) negotiating performance conditions; playing on Capitol Hill for Obama (01:16:25) traditional Irish airs (01:18:06) Fiddle: Air A Stór mo Chroí (01:19:52) the immigrant experience (01:24:19) keeping the love of music alive, performing in the moment, Mary McNamara Fleadh Cheoil (01:34:08) Fiddle: The Caolite Mountains --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/leah-roseman/message
What can an entrepreneur learn from a world-class musician? How to create a world-class team, and unite around a clear mission. In this special crossover episode with our sister podcast, Spark & Fire, you'll hear world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma tell the story of co-founding The Silk Road Project — a musical collective that brings together musicians from wildly different traditions to write and perform original music.Yo-Yo Ma had to foster a collaborative atmosphere between musicians that didn't speak the same language — literally or musically. This, of course, brought a set of unique challenges. So how did Yo-Yo build a shared vision that resonated with his whole team? He knew from the beginning that this project was bigger than just him.On Spark & Fire, you'll be led inside the creative process of high-achieving creators at the top of their game. These insights are relevant to anyone in any field – because creativity and innovation are just different words for the same idea.Listen to the whole episode here: listen.sparkandfire.com/Season2_feedSubscribe to the Spark & Fire weekly newsletter for images, stories and creative prompts: sparkandfire.com/silkroadSpark & Fire is a WaitWhat original in partnership with the BBC. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
We get to talk with an accordion legend, Michael Ward-Bergeman a passionate performer, songwriter and composer. In 2011 he launched his GIG 365 project, which saw him performing at least one gig for every day of 2011. Performances took place at an incredibly diverse range of venues in over thirty-five states and nine countries. Highlights included performances at Gainesville Correctional Facility, Danish Radio Concert Hall, and on the streets of New Orleans. Ward-Bergeman's electro-acoustic compositions have won international awards and he has premiered new works at Carnegie Hall. In 2011 he was commissioned to compose for Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. This episode is chalk full of wisdom, hope you dig it!
The Silk Road Project was an impossibly ambitious, creatively expansive idea to not only create a category of music that had never been heard before, but also create ensembles to perform it, and audiences who were hungry to hear it. How did Yo-Yo Ma build this vision? He knew from the beginning that it wasn't about him.Follow along (with transcript and photos) at sparkandfire.com/silkroad.Subscribe to the Spark & Fire weekly newsletter for images, stories and creative prompts: http://eepurl.com/hkmyMr.Join us every Wednesday on Clubhouse: https://joinclubhouse.com/club/Creativity.Privacy Policy and California Privacy Notice.
Hi, listeners. I want to recommend a new podcast for the New Year that you can subscribe to now. It’s called Spark & Fire, and its aim is to help you live a more creative life. On each episode of Spark & Fire, an admired creator shares the story of their path to creating a beloved work of art – a book, a building, a musical collaboration. For example, Susan Orlean talks about writing The Orchid Thief, and Yo-Yo Ma explains how he created the Silk Road Project.It's created by the same team that produces Meditative Story. (In other words, it’s extremely well done.) If you love Meditative Story, you might find that the ideas behind Spark & Fire resonate with you too. If so, I invite you to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, so that when the first episode appears in early January, you'll receive it automatically.Visit sparkandfire.com
A podcast recommendation for the New Year. The iconic founders who join us our show are all masters of creativity. From the initial spark, down the crooked path of invention, scaling a company is a hero’s journey in creativity. With that: a new podcast from the team behind this show. It’s called Spark & Fire. On each episode, an iconic creator tells the story of bringing a beloved work to life. Yo-Yo Ma on the Silk Road Project. Kemp Powers on Pixar’s “Soul". Architect Thomas Heatherwick on NYC’s Vessel. Novelist Isabel Allende on The House of the Spirits. Book designer Chip Kidd on Jurassic Park. Choreographer Bill T Jones. Last Jedi Director Rian Johnson. But it's not an interview. It’s a captivating story, told entirely in their words.If you love Masters of Scale, you might find this podcast resonates with you too. Take a moment now and to subscribe to Spark & Fire. When the first episode drops on January 6, you'll get it automatically. It will help you think more creatively about everything.sparkandfire.com
A podcast recommendation for the New Year. The iconic founders who join us our show are all masters of creativity. From the initial spark, down the crooked path of invention, scaling a company is a hero’s journey in creativity. With that: a new podcast from the team behind this show. It’s called Spark & Fire. On each episode, an iconic creator tells the story of bringing a beloved work to life. Yo-Yo Ma on the Silk Road Project. Kemp Powers on Pixar’s “Soul". Architect Thomas Heatherwick on NYC’s Vessel. Novelist Isabel Allende on The House of the Spirits. Book designer Chip Kidd on Jurassic Park. Choreographer Bill T Jones. Last Jedi Director Rian Johnson. But it's not an interview. It’s a captivating story, told entirely in their words.If you love Masters of Scale, you might find this podcast resonates with you too. Take a moment now and to subscribe to Spark & Fire. When the first episode drops on January 6, you'll get it automatically. It will help you think more creatively about everything..sparkandfire.com
We speak with Dr Alice Politi about her new paper 'Italy: a case study of the Silk Road Project in Europe'. The paper considers the recent bilateral agreement between Italy and China, examining what it can tell us about the role of Chinese foreign investment for Chinese trade and diplomacy.The paper is the first in a new Policy Series from the Lau China Institute titled 'China in the World'. To find out more about the series and how to get involved, head to www.kcl.ac.uk/lci/policy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Guest: Michael Billington, EIR Asia Desk Host: Dennis Speed, LaRouchePAC Manhattan Live every Thursday at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific - The present breakdown of the world economy, expressed in spreading epidemics and pandemics, has an available and immediate solution. It’s not new; it was put forward by Lyndon LaRouche in 2007: “If the United States –and this is not impossible—if the United States should extend a proposal to Russia, to China, and to India to co-sponsor the formation of a new international monetary financial order that could be done... We have now an incalculable crisis worldwide in progress. This is not a financial crisis... This is a crisis to see who is going to run the world. It is going to be a group of nations, or is it going to be the re-emergent British Empire which never really went away—which takes over from the United States and establishes its world rule through globalization?” That is the question of the hour. The survival of the United States depends upon defeating the present British intelligence war against the Trump presidency. As LaRouche said in 1997, “if the United States , or the President of the United States, and China participate in fostering the project, sometimes called the Silk Road Project, sometimes called the Landbridge project, if that project of developing development corridors across Eurasia into Africa, into North America, is extended, that project is enough work to put the whole planet into an economic revival. There is no need for anybody on the planet who is out of work to be out of work. It’s that simple. And that project is the means.”
The World Bank has loosely defined the Belt and Road Initiative project as "a China-led effort to improve connectivity and regional co-operation on a trans-continental scale through large-scale investments.” In this episode, Drew and Alex talk about China’s attempt at a modern “Silk Road" that is looking to invest in foreign infrastructure, trade routes, and more. They discuss the positives of this initiative, such as its ability to build infrastructure in poorer, less connected countries.They also discuss the growing issues that are related to this project. Many of their concerns come from the idea that China’s intentions are murky at best. The initiative may put many developing countries into "debt traps," as they will eventually be forced to pay back China in some way for these expensive projects. Others worry that China may be peddling political support from these large investment schemes, hoping to get voting power inside the U.N. Are China’s intentions mostly for the betterment of the world’s global system? Or does China have a nefarious goal of growing their economic soft power in places that aren’t happy with the status quo?
Thankfulness Part II today including Scripture verses, songs, and calls. Daryl Van Dyken (lead engineer with Trans World Radio) checks in from Europe with an update on the Silk Road Project that the WFIL listening audience teamed up to support this past October (helping provide a 200,000-watt transmitter to bring the gospel to a 60 million population coverage map in parts of 10 countries in Central Asia). Also includes a clip with VeggieTales co-creator Mike Nawrocki with regard to the importance of delegating & the video Madame Blueberry (featuring “The Thankfulness Song”).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The great cellist Yo-Yo Ma is a citizen artist and a forensic musicologist, decoding the work of musical creators across time and space. In his art, Yo-Yo Ma resists fixed boundaries, and would like to rename classical music just “music” — born in improvisation, and traversing territory as vast and fluid as the world we inhabit. In this generous and intimate conversation, he shares his philosophy of curiosity about life, and of performance as hospitality. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Yo-Yo Ma — Music Happens Between the Notes.” Find more at onbeing.org.
The great cellist shares his philosophy of living. Turning fear into joy. Performance as hospitality and communal witnessing. Beauty as a transfer of life. Sound as visual. How music makes us better. And being a firm believer in accidental meetings. Yo-Yo Ma is a citizen artist and a forensic musicologist, decoding the work of musical creators across time and space. In his art, Yo-Yo Ma resists fixed boundaries, and would like to rename classical music just “music” — born in improvisation, and traversing territory as vast and fluid as the world we inhabit. In this generous and intimate conversation, he shares his philosophy of curiosity about life, and of performance as hospitality. Yo-Yo Ma has won 18 Grammy Awards and is the recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the inaugural Fred Rogers Legacy Award. His newest album is “Brahms: The Piano Trios,” released with Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos. His most recent release with the Silk Road Ensemble is featured on the soundtrack to Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary “The Vietnam War.”
Stream episodes on demand from www.bitesz.com (mobile friendly). The Music Of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble - (Documentary, Music) Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and other international artists of The Silk Road Project discuss their philosophies on music and culture. Director: Morgan Neville Stars: Yo-Yo Ma, Kinan Azmeh, Kayhan Kalho - (IMDb) Subscribe, rate and review Movies First at all good podcatcher apps, including iTunes, audioBoom, Stitcher, Pocketcasts, Podbean, Overcast, RadioPublic, etc. For more, follow Movies First on Facebook, twitter, Google+, and Clammr: Facebook - @moviesfirst twitter - @ moviesfirst Google+ - https://plus.google.com/u/2/collection/8p-OaB Clammr - http://www.clammr.com/app/moviesfirst If you're enjoying Movies First, please share and tell your friends. Your support would be appreciated...thank you. #movies #cinema #entertainment #podcast #reviews#music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Kayhan Kalhor is one of the greatest living masters of the Kamancheh, a 3 or 4 stringed Persian spiked fiddle and ancient predecessor to the modern cello. Kayhan performs around the world extensively as a soloist and collaborator with a wide variety of musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road ensemble. The kamancheh is an incredibly soulful, deeply expressive instrument that can sound like the human voice or a woodwind instrument in the right hands. Talking with Kayhan gave me a wonderful opportunity to explore the world of Persian classical music, a field that is completely new to me, with an outside perspective that I imagine might be similar to someone who doesn't know anything about Western classical music. What should I be listening for? What are the elements helpful to understand so that I can gain a deeper appreciation for the beautiful sounds I hear? Links Kayhan's website: http://www.kayhankalhor.net/ Silk Road Project: https://www.silkroadproject.org/
World renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma established Silkroad in 1998 to explore how music can advance global understanding. Since 2000, the musicians of the world music collective, Silk Road Ensemble, have been on a mission to change the world by connecting diverse cultures and traditions in performances, workshops, and residencies. Yo-Yo Ma and the Grammy-nominated Silk Road Ensemble recently released their sixth album, "Sing Me Home", which was developed and recorded alongside "The Music of Strangers", a new documentary movie from Oscar and Emmy-winning director Morgan Neville that tells the story of the Ensemble and Silkroad, its parent organization. "The Music of Strangers" is slated for theatrical release later this week, and is one of the most breathtaking, beautiful, and moving documentaries I have ever seen. In this episode, we'll meet some of the remarkable musicians featured prominently in the film, and listen to excerpts from "Sing Me Home", an album which explores the musical roots of individual members of the Ensemble. Links The Silk Road Project website: http://www.silkroadproject.org/ Yo-Yo Ma's website: http://www.yo-yoma.com/
An hour of music and conversation with Brooklyn Rider on WorldStreams
We’re concluding our interview with double bass soloist and University of Texas-Austin bass professor DaXun Zhang today, as well as featuring more tracks from this stellar musician. Check out episode 92 for the first part of this interview. Along with the conclusion of our interview, we’ll be featuring DaXun performing a very cool Chinese piece for bass called Sun SHines on Taxkorgan. It’s available on his self-titled solo album, which you can learn more about at his website. DaXun is also professor of double bass at the University of Texas-Austin, so check out their website if you’d like to learn more about studying with him, and be sure to visit daxunzhang.com for more about this great artist. Enjoy! About DaXun: “If the bass is finally to produce a headliner, the instrument can have no better champion,” wrote The Washington Post of double bassist DAXUN ZHANG, who has indeed made his mark as a soloist on this unusual instrument. In April 2007, Mr. Zhang won an Avery Fisher Career Grant, only the second double bassist in the history of this prestigious award. This summer he was invited by cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han to participate in the chamber music festival Music@Menlo in California and performs Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet at the Indiana University Summer Chamber Music Series. During the 2007-2008 season he continues his residency with Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two, and performs with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project in a series of concerts and cultural exchanges in China. He performs as soloist with the University of Northern Colorado Symphony and gives recitals at Indiana University, Rodef Shalom Congregation (PA), and McCain Performances (KS). Mr. Zhang has performed extensively with the Silk Road Project, including concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall, and in Japan and California. With Mr. Ma he recorded the soundtrack to a 10-part documentary series on the Silk Road, which aired in Japan on NHK Television. The CD was released as “Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon” on Sony Classical. He has also joined with fellow Silk Road musician and pipa player Yang Wei and pianist Tomoko Kashiwagi to form the innovative chamber ensemble Qi Lin. As concerto soloist, Mr. Zhang has appeared with orchestras including Orange County’s Pacific Symphony, the Monroe Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle and the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra. He has given recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, the University of Georgia, Missouri State University, and at the Chinese Embassy in the Embassy Series in Washington, DC. He has also performed chamber music at the La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest, the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati, the Strings in the Mountains Music Festival and the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival. DaXun Zhang is the first double bass player to win the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and start a career under the auspices of Young Concert Artists. He made his New York debut sponsored by the Claire Tow Prize and his Washington, DC debut as a co-presentation with Washington Performing Arts Society. He also won the La Jolla Music Society Prize, the Orchestra New England Soloist Prize, and The Fergus Prize. In April 2006, Mr. Zhang performed Bizet’s Carmen Fantasy in at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall with Keith Lockhart conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. DaXun Zhang comes from a family of bassists in Harbin, China. He has been playing the instrument since the age of nine, and studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing beginning at the age of eleven. He continued his studies in the U.S. at the Interlochen Arts Academy and received his Bachelor of Music at the Indiana University School of Music, where he worked with Lawrence Hurst. He has served on the faculty of Northwestern University and was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Double Bass at the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Zhang was the first double bassist ever to win First Prize in the 2003 WAMSO (Women’s Auxiliary of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra) competition, leading to a performance with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra with Osmo Vanska, conducting. In 2001, Mr. Zhang was the youngest artist ever to win the International Society of Bassists Solo Competition. He has also received the Grand Prize of the American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition. DaXun’s Website: www.daxunzhang.com
We’re featuring an interview with double bass soloist and University of Texas-Austin bass professor DaXun Zhang today, as well as featuring more tracks from this stellar musician. Along with the conclusion of our interview, we’ll be featuring DaXun performing a very cool Chinese piece for bass called Sun SHines on Taxkorgan. It’s available on his self-titled solo album, which you can learn more about at his website. DaXun is also professor of double bass at the University of Texas-Austin, so check out their website if you’d like to learn more about studying with him, and be sure to visit daxunzhang.com for more about this great artist. Enjoy! About DaXun: “If the bass is finally to produce a headliner, the instrument can have no better champion,” wrote The Washington Post of double bassist DAXUN ZHANG, who has indeed made his mark as a soloist on this unusual instrument. In April 2007, Mr. Zhang won an Avery Fisher Career Grant, only the second double bassist in the history of this prestigious award. This summer he was invited by cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han to participate in the chamber music festival Music@Menlo in California and performs Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet at the Indiana University Summer Chamber Music Series. During the 2007-2008 season he continues his residency with Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two, and performs with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project in a series of concerts and cultural exchanges in China. He performs as soloist with the University of Northern Colorado Symphony and gives recitals at Indiana University, Rodef Shalom Congregation (PA), and McCain Performances (KS). Mr. Zhang has performed extensively with the Silk Road Project, including concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall, and in Japan and California. With Mr. Ma he recorded the soundtrack to a 10-part documentary series on the Silk Road, which aired in Japan on NHK Television. The CD was released as “Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon” on Sony Classical. He has also joined with fellow Silk Road musician and pipa player Yang Wei and pianist Tomoko Kashiwagi to form the innovative chamber ensemble Qi Lin. As concerto soloist, Mr. Zhang has appeared with orchestras including Orange County’s Pacific Symphony, the Monroe Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle and the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra. He has given recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, the University of Georgia, Missouri State University, and at the Chinese Embassy in the Embassy Series in Washington, DC. He has also performed chamber music at the La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest, the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati, the Strings in the Mountains Music Festival and the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival. DaXun Zhang is the first double bass player to win the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and start a career under the auspices of Young Concert Artists. He made his New York debut sponsored by the Claire Tow Prize and his Washington, DC debut as a co-presentation with Washington Performing Arts Society. He also won the La Jolla Music Society Prize, the Orchestra New England Soloist Prize, and The Fergus Prize. In April 2006, Mr. Zhang performed Bizet’s Carmen Fantasy in at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall with Keith Lockhart conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. DaXun Zhang comes from a family of bassists in Harbin, China. He has been playing the instrument since the age of nine, and studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing beginning at the age of eleven. He continued his studies in the U.S. at the Interlochen Arts Academy and received his Bachelor of Music at the Indiana University School of Music, where he worked with Lawrence Hurst. He has served on the faculty of Northwestern University and was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Double Bass at the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Zhang was the first double bassist ever to win First Prize in the 2003 WAMSO (Women’s Auxiliary of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra) competition, leading to a performance with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra with Osmo Vanska, conducting. In 2001, Mr. Zhang was the youngest artist ever to win the International Society of Bassists Solo Competition. He has also received the Grand Prize of the American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition. DaXun’s Website: www.daxunzhang.com