Stanford Thompson Named TED Fellow
Stanford Thompson '10, who completed the Sistema Fellows Program at NEC, has been selected as one of 15 TED Fellows for 2017.
Stanford Thompson '10, who completed the Sistema Fellows Program at NEC, has been selected as one of 15 TED Fellows for 2017.
Thompson will give a four-minute talk in April 2017 at the annual TED Conference, a gathering of leaders and innovators in the disciplines of technology, business, education, design, and more. He will speak about his work as the founder of Play On, Philly!, an El-Sistema-inspired program with a mission to “foster life skills among its participants by providing high-quality music education to children who would otherwise not receive it.”
“Every day, our students’ practice with instruments helps them practice these skills: the regulation of complex cognitive processes like working memory, reasoning, flexibility, and problem solving as well as planning and execution,” Thompson writes. “We know that those who posses these skills will out-perform those who don’t have them and we are confident that learning to play music is the best way for our young people to acquire them.”
Thompson was one of fifty musicians to be trained as a Sistema Fellow at New England Conservatory. The Sistema Fellows program was developed in partnership with TED and El Sistema founder José Antonio Abreu ’02 hon. D.M., after Abreu was honored with the TED Prize in 2009. In his acceptance speech, Abreu outlined his vision for the Fellows program, saying, “Here is my TED Prize wish—I wish that you help to create and document a special training program for fifty gifted young musicians, passionate about their art and social justice and dedicated to bringing El Sistema to the United States and other countries.”
El Sistema was founded by Abreu in Venezuela in 1975. A social development program that stresses musical excellence, it proceeds from the idea of instilling "affluence of the spirit," and seeks nothing less than the social, moral, educational, and professional transformation of the children it serves—most of them from the poorest strata of society.
In addition to founding Play On, Philly!, Thompson is a professional trumpeter who has performed with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Symphony in C. Thompson holds degrees from New England Conservatory and The Curtis Institute of Music.