New York Times tech columnist David Pogue performs a satirical mini-medley about iTunes and the downloading wars, borrowing a few notes from Sonny and Cher and the Village People.

He’s sold more than 100 million albums and earned 16 Grammy Awards, yet Sting continues to surprise. His fourteenth solo album, The Last Ship, features songs from his Broadway-bound musical of the same name.

Pianist Daria van den Bercken fell in love with the baroque keyboard music of George Frideric Handel. Now, she aims to ignite this passion in others. In this talk, she plays us through the emotional roller coaster of his music — while sailing with her piano through the air, driving it down the street, and of course playing on the stage.

Joshua Roman is an internationally recognized cellist.

In this talk, musician and educator Anita Collins makes a passionate case for music education as an indispensable part of school curricula, describing how learning to play music is the neurological equivalent of a full-body workout.

Brothers Ryan and Hays Holladay explore the intersection of art and technology with an emphasis on music and sound, with projects ranging from multichannel audio installations to interactive performances to mobile apps.

Megan Washington has won two ARIA Awards, the Australian equivalent of the Grammys. A popular singer/songwriter, she has recently come clean with a secret—that she has a speech impediment.

Percussionist and composer Dame Evelyn Glennie lost nearly all of her hearing by age 12. Rather than isolating her, it has given her a unique connection to her music.

José Bowen is an accomplished musician and teacher who explores how technology has shaped the history of music.

From the printing press to the digital camera, innovation has often democratized the creative arts. In this forward-looking talk, music producer Drew Silverstein demos a new software that allows anyone to create professional-grade music without putting human musicians out of work.

One night in 2002, a friend gave Jorge Drexler the chorus to a song and challenged him to write the rest of it using a complex, poetic form known as the "Décima." In this fascinating talk, Drexler examines the blended nature of identity, weaving together the history of the Décima with his own quest to write one. He closes the talk with a perform...

The music synthesizers that are a DJ's stock in trade were once the size of entire rooms. Now the power to create your own music can be housed in a laptop. In a live demo, James Bickerton shows how music production is not just for pros but for everyday people who want to make the beat drop.

Whether they’re sung in in English or his native Faroese, Teitur laces his deceptively innocent songs with often stinging hooks.

When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this m...

From his home in London, Jacob Collier showcases his virtuosic vocal, piano and guitar skills in an enrapturing five-song set. Stick around to hear him premiere a new original track, "The Sun Is in Your Eyes," and sing a gorgeous rendition of "Danny Boy."

The ten women in this chorus have all been sentenced to life in prison. They share a moving song about their experiences — one that reveals their hopes, regrets and fears. "I'm not an angel," sings one, "but I'm not the devil." Filmed at an independent TEDx event inside Muncy State Prison, it's a rare and poignant look inside the world of people...

With a rich voice and an equally rich sense of history, Rhiannon Giddens animates American folk tradition with her electrifying song interpretations.

Equally talented on cello and vocals, Caroline Lavelle has created a performance style all her own. Her expansive talents, channeling the best of both classical and contemporary influences, have earned her comparisons to both Kate Bush and Jacqueline du Pré.

It all started as a practical joke: Geert Chatrou's sister-in-law entered him in the International Whistler's Convention in Louisburg, NC. To save face, he went … and won!

Percussionist Sivamani delivers one of TED's liveliest and most inventive performances yet. He uses traditional Western and Eastern instruments to create a rhythmic tour de force, along with a tub of water, corrugated metal, spoons, luggage, our stage props and even a little audience participation.

At MIT's Media Lab, Tod Machover creates boundary-breaking new music, often using new instruments and music technologies he has invented.

Jill Sobule isn't just another singer-songwriter with catchy tunes and smart lyrics, she's one of the more insightful satirists of our age. Each of her fanciful songs captures an issue or irony, an emotion or epiphany that helps us understand what it's like to live now.

Charles Hazlewood dusts off and invigorates classical music, adding a youthful energy and modern twists to centuries-old masterworks. At TEDGlobal, he conducts the Scottish Ensemble.

In this epic overview, Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of classical music through the development of written notation, the record, and the re-mix.

A real-life circus composer, Sxip Shirey makes haunting melodies from familiar objects and reconfigured sounds.

Onyx Ashanti is the inventor of "beatjazz" -- a new way to make music.

The three Ahn sisters (cellist Maria, pianist Lucia, violinist Angella) breathe new life into the piano trio with their passionate musicmaking. At TEDWomen, they start with the bright and poppy "Skylife," by David Balakrishnan, then play a gorgeous, slinky version of "Oblivion," by Astor Piazzolla.

Music has the power to transform moods, unite crowds and topple governments. However, as neuroscientist and operatic soprano Indre Viskontas points out, we know very little about how the brain turns strings of sounds into music. In a talk that explores art with science, she describes how her investigation into the brain's responses to music insp...

Scott Rickard is passionate about mathematics, music -- and educating the next generation of scientists and mathematicians.

The euphonium, with its sweet brass sound, is rarely heard outside of traditional brass bands. Cutting loose on the euph, prodigy Matthew White performs Nat McIntosh's hip-hop-inflected "The Warrior Comes Out to Play."