Legendary Musician and Seven-time GRAMMY Winner Eddie Palmieri Captivates Columbia University Audience with Multimedia Exhibition on Music and his Life

March 10, 2005 New York, NY - As part of the Project Citizen series, this week Teacher's College, Columbia University hosted "Sounds & Silences: Eddie Palmieri on Music and Life," where the legendary pianist and composer explored art and life from the standpoint of pedagogy, while captivating his audience with his unique style of performance, revealing his vast and artistic insight into his lifetime of

Sound & Video

Citizen / Eddie Palmieri

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Mr. Palmieri spoke of the conditions of social unrest and community development that occurred during his successful career as a Salsa, Latin jazz and Classical composer and musician, who has traveled the world exposing vast communities to the danceable and relevant music that he has created.

Mr. Sealey interviewed Mr. Palmieri and

utilized recordings,visuals, and live performances by the artist to elicit the inspirations that led him to compose and record some the music world's most revered and respected jazz and Latin music created by Mr. Palmieri and his equally talented late brother Charlie Palmieri. The discussion also highlighted the role socially responsible music can play in building communities and bridges between cultures. Mr. Palmieri discussed the need for social progress that has framed the work of many musicians, such as himself, throughout history.

"Everything that was happening at the time, the extreme poverty, Viet Nam , Kent State , all kinds of social injustice had an effect on my music," Mr. Palmieri recalled . "Music was my form of expressing what I was feeling." Mr. Palmieri then discussed how some of his music highlighted the mass exploitation musicians were experiencing and the deplorable conditions in poor communities, explaining that the artists in one of his early recordings were forced to record in a studio with no heat: "Do you hear that? The piano was frozen," he said, laughing about the dilemma he had to endure in order to create his art. "It was like playing ice cubes," he added, chuckling with the good nature that he is known for.

Mr. Sealey a Teachers College adjunct lecturer and doctoral candidate, and the series' co-founder, pointed out that this session of the series, which employs a daytime TV talk show format with audience participation, film and video clips integrated into a far reaching discussion, was even more challenging because of the live performances Mr. Palmieri conducted to illustrate his

responses. "But it all seemed to have just the right balance," he said.

For more information on Project Citizen and the Film & Education Research Academy , see www.filmandeducation.org. Contact can also be made to citizen@columbia.edu .

A tape of this show will be made available to Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) for broadcast. In April, viewers can access a digital stream of the Citizen/Palmieri show through www.filmandeducation.org . Also see this website for the ongoing programs of Project Citizen.

About the participants:

Eddie Palmieri : Spanish Harlem-born, seven-time GRAMMY Award winner Eddie Palmieri is recognized as being among the foremost pianists and composers of the last fifty years. With his band La Perfecta II, Eddie gently fuses the musical styles of his Hispanic heritage with jazz influences of Thelonius Monk and McCoy Tyner,

all evident through his trademark sounds of flute and trombones. In this performance, Mr. Palmieri not only called upon his classical compositional gifts at the piano, but also discussed his life and work, turning this concert into a master class of unusual academic and contemporary relevance.

Kelvin Shawn Sealey: A 42-year-old teacher and educator is an adjunct lecturer on cultural studies and education at Teachers College, Columbia University , and the co-founder of the Film and Education Research Academy (FERA), which was incubated in the college's Center for Education Outreach and Innovation. His edited works include Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America , a collection of interviews by Cornel West with nine leading American public figures, and a volume of essays about social enterprise. His work with Project Citizen is an attempt to highlight the importance of critical public dialog on shaping contemporary social issues, and to ground the notion of citizenship in both collective action and personal responsibility.

Teachers College is the largest graduate school of education in the nation. Teachers College is affiliated with Columbia University , but it is legally and financially independent. The editors of U.S. News and World Report have ranked Teachers College as one of the leading graduate schools of education in the country. For more information, please visit the college's Web site at www.tc.columbia.edu .