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Meet Shimon, the marimba-playing robot that can improvise with fluency and skill exceeding that of most professional musicians. This atypical frontman’s band isn’t your average performance group either: Shimon’s band of humans hails not from a conservatory, but from the Center for Music Technology at Georgia Tech. And did we mention the drummer lays the rhythm with a bioni...


At 28, musician Jon Batiste is considered by many to be one of the most exciting and progressive new crossover talents on the scene today.

No one knows the restorative power of music better than the musicians who make it (although brain scientists keep learning more). In collaboration with Jazz Aspen Snowmass, well-known artists performing at the June festival talk about the history and origin of the music they perform, share personal stories about their own relationship to music, and riff on its link to heal...

Atlanta-based defense attorney and #BillionDollarLawyer Drew Findling discusses the intersection of criminal justice, race, and hip-hop. These issues, common themes in hip-hop music, reflect deeply rooted societal schisms which play out endlessly in the collateral consequences of criminal conviction and mass incarceration. This session will explore how recent events like M...

Research supports the idea that creatives of all types are over-represented in the population dealing with mood disorders and other psychiatric challenges. Certainly some of the world’s greatest musical masterpieces were composed by musicians who struggled with mental illness. Was it a source of inspiration for their creativity, or did they turn to art to help them heal? R...

In collaboration with NPR Music, Field Recordings at Aspen Ideas takes artists off the beaten path and throughout the magnificent 40-acre Aspen campus for unamplified outdoor performances. The natural acoustics and stunning backdrop of the Rocky Mountains make for a truly a one-of-a-kind listening experience.

Rapper Yellopain shares the story behind his political awakening and the power of language and music to motivate action.

Music and dance are humanity’s hallmarks, a shared ritual of communities the world over. Over the millennia, we’ve created some highly specialized forms, but at its root, music is a language of emotion and empowerment, longing and loss — though it can also be a subversive force against authority.

Playwright Anna Deavere Smith and opera director Yuval Sharon explore how this extraordinary moment in our history will both influence their work as artists and compel all of us to reinterpret art from the past. While social change has emboldened artistic expression throughout history, evident in ancient Greek plays and centuries-old Shakespearian dramas, artistic expressi...

World-renowned cellist Joshua Roman blends performance and storytelling to share his experience with long COVID and the life-altering limitations that nearly ended his career. After a crisis of struggle and self-doubt, Roman emerged with a profound acceptance of who he is, and a deeper understanding of what it takes to deal with a mysterious medical challenge. An intimate...

Music exists in every human culture and drives a multibillion-dollar industry, and yet the vast majority of people who enjoy music do instinctively, without any formal training. So where does music come from, and what is is good for? Drawing from studies in neuroscience, psychology, clinical science, and data science, Dr. Psyche Loui will discuss why we feel emotions in re...

Acoustics, intimacy, clarity: One could argue that how and where we listen to music is as important to the experience as the music itself. “The orchestra has to feel the audience, the audience has to feel the orchestra,” said architect Frank Gehry on his design of the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, which opened in 2017. “When they do that, the orchestra plays better, and th...

Music can lift the spirits and help heal the body. No musician demonstrates that better than Jon Batiste, a “crowd-thrilling rebel bandleader,” according to Rolling Stone magazine. Viewers of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" know him best for the exuberant music he conducts with Stay Human. Accomplished pianist, artistic director at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem,...

Our social nature is a major driver of our creativity: We constantly strive to engage and surprise each other, our inventiveness giving us reasons to tune in. Drawing on The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, the book he co-authored with neuroscientist David Eagleman, composer Anthony Brandt takes us inside Beethoven’s string quartets to examine what...

Born out of gospel, R&B, and jazz in late 1950s America, soul has permeated music culture so thoroughly that its influence can be heard everywhere from modern country music to rock and hip-hop. So what is it about soul, and how did it become a soundtrack to some of our nation’s most defining moments? The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik and Grammy Award-winning artists share —...

At the 2020 Aspen Ideas Festival, five of America's premier artists in classical music, jazz, and ballet bring virtual audiences works of art intended to deepen thought.

Afghanistan is a silent nation since the Taliban made it illegal to play, teach, or even listen to music earlier this year. Watch a performance by graduates of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), followed by a conversation with Marin Alsop and Renée Fleming, who supported the evacuation of 273 students and faculty from Kabul in December. David Rubenstein wi...

What possibilities unfurl when a symphony reaches Skid Row? How does music create healing on a street corner? Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist Vijay Gupta and internationally renowned soprano Camille Zamora are expanding access to classical music through their organizations Street Symphony and Sing for Hope, which bring music out of symphony halls and into the spaces of...

How does ballet strengthen the mind along with the body? Can Yo-Yo Ma help sixth graders learn earth science? How do the personal and political transform when they come together in performance? The below clips, which feature dance, music, and art pieces performed at the Aspen Ideas Festival, are tantalizing parts of whole sessions that explore how the arts can heal, educat...