The Bowery Presents (Venue Partner)
This event has passed.
- When
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Sunday Oct 25, 2009 (7:30pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$100, $65, $35
Town Hall
123 W 43rd St
New York, NY 10036-6507
(212) 997-1003
Get directions
Grammy-winning producer/engineer/filmmaker Mark Johnson founded Playing For Change on the simple idea that the world can be connected through music. Starting in Santa Monica, California, Mark captured a performance of “Stand By Me” by legendary street blues singer Roger Ridley, then he took the show on the road. In New Orleans, he put headphones on Grandpa Elliott, who harmonized with Ridley’s soulful rendition of the song. And he didn’t stop there. Using innovative mobile technology and travelling the world, they filmed and recorded more than 100 musicians, largely outdoors, in parks, plazas and promenades, in doorways, on cobblestone streets and amid hilly pueblos. Each captured performance created a new mix in which essentially the artists are all performing together, albeit hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
Playing For Change has been one of 2009’s most unlikely and startling cultural phenomenons. Hear Music’s two-disc CD/DVD Playing For Change – Songs Around the World, released on April 28th, stunned the music industry selling over twenty-six thousand copies in it’s first week and landing at #10 on Billboard’s Top 200 Pop chart. (Hear Music is partnership between Concord Music Group and Starbucks.) This remarkable and unpredicted popular response has been driven by tens of millions of video hits, countless blogs and pure viral communication between fans and followers. The project’s deep emotional resonance, combined with the muscle of the internet and word-of-mouth has struck a profoundly enduring chord world-wide.
