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| | | Cristina Pato and Johnny Gandelsman during a flash concert at HBS | © DAVID O'CONNOR
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On an average day at noon, Spangler Center at the Harvard Business School draws small groups for lunch and quiet study. But on Monday, September 26, a surprise performance by the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma packed the lounge. The sounds of bird whistles and the gaita drifting through the hallways drew such an overflow crowd that even HBS Dean Nitin Nohria had to find space sitting on the floor. The audience had gathered for more than a concert. The message behind the music was an invitation for the arts and business communities to collaborate.
In town to workshop a new piece with the Silk Road Ensemble, Michael Ward-Bergeman (interviewed in our September issue) joined in the flash concert at HBS on his accordion. The video above appeared on his Gig 365 blog. After the Ensemble played for around 15 minutes, Professor Youngme Moon, senior associate dean and faculty chair of the MBA program, welcomed the musicians and passersby. Students, staff and faculty stayed for an impromptu discussion about cultural entrepreneurship. Addressing the need for business models to support innovative ideas that improve our society, cellist Mike Block described his own projects, including new technology designed to make music accessible in low-resourced schools. Sandeep Das discussed his organization HUM, modeled in many ways after the Silk Road Project but with the specific aims of assisting blind and aging musicians in India. Cristina Pato inquired how students could use their training in business to help others through the arts. Dean Nohria asked students to take up the questions the Silk Road Ensemble raised. "We think about standard groups like symphonies," he said, "but social entrepreneurship makes us consider other types of organizations that can be sustained in the future." While this was the first time the Ensemble appeared at HBS, the flash concert did not so much mark a new direction for the Silk Road Project's affiliation with Harvard. Rather, the event made explicit the focus on collaboration across disciplines that animates the Project's partnership with the University. As Artistic Director Yo-Yo Ma said when he took the mike, we usually discuss music in terms of sound, but the kind of interaction the audience had just witnessed among the musicians "makes values visible." He invited the future business leaders in the room to consider how a thriving cultural engine can respond to needs in our society and add value and meaning to individual lives—and how entrepreneurs can help that happen. See our Postcard from the Road for photos from the residency. The Silk Road Project’s 2011 Harvard Residency was supported in part by the generosity of our corporate, foundation and government partners: Hyosung Corporation (Lead Corporate Sponsor), Rolex (Exclusive Corporate Partner), National Endowment for the Arts, and MetLife Foundation (Official 2011 Tour Sponsor). |