Baltimore Symphony Orchestra OrchKids - Artistic Director Daniel Trahey to be Featured Speaker at TEDxBaltimore, Jan. 25

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra OrchKids Artistic Director Daniel Trahey will be a featured speaker at TEDxBaltimore’s 2013 event, “Baltimore ReWired” on Friday, January 25, 2012 at Morgan State University. The event’s theme is “Reconceptionalizing the Urban Landscape.” Mr. Trahey will describe how OrchKids’ revolutionary methods of using music as a vehicle for social change is revitalizing young lives and entire neighborhoods in Baltimore City. His talk is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. and will be followed by a performance by the OrchKids Orchestra.

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. At TED, the world's leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TEDx events are local, self-organized events branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

Dan Trahey, OrchKids Artistic Director
Musician, educator, activist, and innovator, Dan Trahey was given the title of Most Valuable Player in the Arts this year by Baltimore Magazine. Dan is the Artistic Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids. He was instrumental in creating the OrchKids program. He is a professor of music and community engagement at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where 10 years ago he founded the El Sistema program Tuned In. (El Sistema is the Venezuelan orchestral training program founded by Antonio Abreu that has used music as a vehicle for social change among that country’s most at-risk youth.) Mr. Trahey plays tuba with The Archipelago Project, a non-profit music education ensemble he co-founded. This project advocates musical arts through performance, residency and consultation in various locations in the US, Europe, and Latin America. As a tuba player he has held orchestral positions in the U.S., Germany, and Mexico.
Mr. Trahey has presented lectures on music education at the Chicago Symphony, Princeton University, Maryland Institute College of Art, The Mozarteum, American Visionary Arts Museum, Yale University, League of American Orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Urban Music Education Conference, Guild Hall School, and the South Banke Center.
He has been instrumental in the development of El Sistema programs in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, California, Connecticut, Michigan, and Canada and Austria. Dan has lead over 150 people to Latin America to study and experience El Sistema.
Dan Trahey has taught at the New England Conservatory, Baltimore School for the Arts, Idyllwild Arts, Manchester, Connecticut Public Schools, and in the Baltimore City Public School System. Currently, he holds teaching residencies with the Innsbruck Musikschule, Tyrole, Austria; the Nuclea Acarigua, in Portuguesa, Venezuela, and in the Traverse City, Michigan public school system.
He received a Masters of Music from Yale University and a Bachelors of Music Education from Johns Hopkins University. Upcoming speaking engagements include TEDx Baltimore, El Sistema Brazil and Classical Music Woodstock.

About OrchKids
OrchKids is a year-round after-school music program designed to create social change and nurture promising futures for youth in Baltimore City neighborhoods. Under Music Director Marin Alsop’s artistic leadership and direction, OrchKids is a cornerstone of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s efforts to expand the Orchestra’s relevance within the City’s broad and diverse community. In collaboration with several community partners, OrchKids provides music education, instruments, meals and mentorship at no cost to Baltimore’s neediest youngsters.
The program is inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema, the music program that in 30 years has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in that country’s most impoverished areas. Like El Sistema, OrchKids is intended primarily to address the most pervasive social challenges affecting underserved youth, using music to cultivate fundamental life skills such as self-expression, cooperative learning, discipline and creativity. With assistance from The Family League of Baltimore City and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, the BSO has implemented several assessment tools to track if OrchKids participants are achieving social, academic and musical outcomes.
In the 2012-13 Baltimore City School Year, OrchKids will work with 4 Public Elementary Schools serving close to 600 children from Pre-Kindergarten thought the 7th grade. Under OrchKids Artistic Director Dan Trahey, students receive classroom music instruction during the school day and in after-school sessions four days a week from 3:30-6:30 p.m. A typical after-school session includes classroom music instruction, group instrument lessons, tutoring assistance and a nutritious snack. OrchKids also frequently have the opportunity to take field trips to local organizations and attend Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concerts.

About TEDxBaltimore
Join leading thinkers, activists, artists, philosophers and entertainers from the Baltimore area. TED conferences bring together the world’s leading thinkers and doers for a series of talks, presentations and performances. TED events have been called “a clearing house of free knowledge and inspiration,” “you can’t return to the real world thinking the same thoughts you thought before, ” “the ultimate forum for blue-sky thinking,” and “a holiday for the mind.” What can you expect to see? Speakers at TED events – some of the world’s most fascinating, innovative and influential individuals – are challenged to give “the talk of their life” in 18 minutes or less. Sharing and connection happens from the stage or in the lounge. It’s the conversation that will change your life. TEDxBaltimore celebrates the power of ideas to positively change the world; we aim to build community by bringing together like-minded people who believe in this mission.

About TEDx
x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. At TED, the world's leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Two major TED events are held each year: The TED Conference takes place every spring in Long Beach, California (along with a parallel conference, TEDActive, in Palm Springs), and TEDGlobal is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily; the new TED Conversations, enabling broad conversations among TED fans; and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to betranslated by volunteers worldwide.

TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world; and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.