 and CEO, Mario Garcia Durham. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to this special moment when we come together a bit so that we can look at what we've accomplished over the past four days and to bid each other a successful new year ahead. Once again, I want to thank all of our terrific sponsors, as I told one of them this morning. We at APEP don't take one thing for granted, so we're deeply appreciative. I want to thank our more than 100 volunteers. Can I have applause for them? These are all students. They're fantastic. They are real. You know, I used to have worries about the next generation of administrators and arts leaders. I know more worries. They are fantastic. I also want to thank the production crew behind the scene. You may think that all of these guys come in. Just drop it. These guys have been with us for at least two years, and they're a great production crew. Can you give a round of applause for them? So I also want to thank, again, the superb leadership and guidance we received from the 2015 conference committee led by Rachel Cohen, Kathy Edwards, and Daniel Bernard Romain. Can we have applause for them? And if any of the members of the, you know, we have a larger body of the conference committee that guides us through the year. If any of the members of the conference committee are here, other members, can you please stand? Let's see. Very good. All right. Well, let's pretend there's one. Alicia Adams. Let's get her to the other. You're a fine representative, madam. All right. And now I want to thank and acknowledge this. I'm so blessed. This team, I have to yell at them to come be acknowledged. So I have to pull them off their jobs. The APEP team, you all know the difficulties you've had making this wonderful conference come together. They have been saints. They have been so hardworking. Words can't express. I hope you're feeling my gratitude. But I'm going to just call them out individually. They don't want to stand, but I'm making them stand. So I wanted to mention Rebecca Celesta, please stand. Emily Travis, please stand. Hold your applause. I know. Send out happy, happy thoughts at each name. Kalen Saylor, please stand. Margaret Stevens, please stand. Melinda Lambert, please stand. Scott Stoner, please stand. Gil Gonzalez, I hope you made it in the room. Jenny Thomas, Sue Noseworthy, Laura Benson, Judy Moore, Megan Redman, Mallory Baum, Mia DiStefano, and Nicola Turner. These are the all-star saints that made all of this happen for you. And since this is a time of acknowledgment, I also wanted to thank some other folks that come and help us and assist with us. Katie and Caitlyn, Jeremy Dunn, Adam and Christy Kisick, the photographers, Nancy Rutherford, who was sitting up in the front, the entire conference helping out members of the info. Carol Miller, our wonderful press and publicity person. Suzanne Roach, who comes and helps us each year in our headquarters. Alicia Anstead, wonderful editor of Inside Arts, an all-around huge supporter. This is something you don't hear of. Phil and Diane, can you please stand? The reason our staff is applauding is because when our websites went completely down, we called in Phil Seaman, who is a savior extraordinaire, and he came in and brought everything up and with joy and happiness and humor and no issues. And his lovely wife, Diane, comes and volunteers at the conference every year. So please give them a round of applause. And then finally, Craig, are you in the room? Craig? Craig? OK, so as you all know, this is my other much, much, much, much better half, Craig, who is here as a volunteer, kind of forced volunteer here. And anyway, he's the one that I go home to. And when I'm like, oh my god, what do I do? And he's like, get back to work. So anyway, thank you, Craig. Thank you so much. Pardon me? Yes, I would like for you to please give a round of applause. Thank you, Baraka. Thank you so much. And do we have both of them here today? No. So please give a round of applause to our wonderful, anyone else? You always say, who do we forget? Are we anyone else? All right, let me know if there's anyone else out here to acknowledge. Thank you, I love acknowledging. All right, so let me turn my page here. So at this time, it is my great honor and privilege to introduce our keynote speaker. Angelique Quijote's music is rooted in both traditional and contemporary music of Benin. It is her inquisitiveness and love for other genres of music that have led her to international fame. She sings in four languages, and having met her and spoken with her on the phone, she probably speaks a dozen. She has achieved success as a solo musician in her early career, but her career really took off when she joined the European Jazz Funk African Fusion Band, Peely Peely, as a lead singer in the mid-1980s. She has since garnered much well-deserved recognition and has a large devoted community of international fans. She has worked with many of the world's finest musicians, including Joss Stone, Peter Gabriel, and Ziggy Marley. But, and another reason we invited her here, she's not just a performer. She is a committed hero to humanitarian work and aid. In 2002, Angelique Quijote was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador by UNICEF and used her voice and her influence to reach people worldwide to discuss some of the major issues affecting the people of Africa, including the spread of HIV-AIDS, poverty and hunger, and conflict and war in such difficult spots as Darfur. Ms. Quijote has started her own foundation, the Batonga Foundation, to help and support education for young girls in Africa. So again, I am humbled to have the opportunity to introduce such an incredible person and artist. Please welcome Angelique Quijote. Hello, thank you. Happy New Year to everybody. 2015 started like 10 days ago. Well, it's going fast. And the song I just sang is a welcoming song. I want to welcome and thank everybody here for coming today to listen to what I have to say and for what you do. Because as an artist, we need each other, right? That's how it works. Today, I'm honored to be able to give you a little bit of insight in my life. I am the person I am today because my parents were exceptional. And I only recognize it now, because when you're a child, everything your parents say, you're just like, ah! And you don't want to hear any of it. My mom and dad used to say that I start singing before I start speaking. And as long as I can recall, I always was surrounded with music. My mom in the late in the 60s, before I was born, had a theater group. She has passion for theater. And she decided that she's going to have a theater group. And she's going to write the piece, do the costume, do the lightning, everything. She was just in my extra on every kind of way. So when I was six years old, a young girl in the theater group that used to sing one song at the middle of it was sick. So my mom said to me, OK, you're always telling me, when am I going to sing? When am I going to go on stage? Now it's your turn. I'm not going. I was mingling with the costume and being a naughty girl, as usual. She dragged me up from under the costumes, put the coat on me, and I said, Mom, what are you doing? She said, you're going on stage? I said, no, I'm not. She said, yes, you're going. No, I'm not. And then she shoveled me on that stage. And the reaction of the public was exactly like that, because I arrived completely in panic, total panic. There's no light in the room, only one spotlight. And I was in the middle of that spotlight, couldn't see anybody. I'm like, well, nobody's seeing me. They're having fun. So I started singing. And at six years old, I sang this song. And I rushed out of the stage as soon as I was done. My mom was on the wing of the stage, looking at me like that. And I walked out, I said, Mom, how did I do? She just did this. I'm like, do you like it? She said, have a show to run. We talk later. And later on, she told me that I did great. So that was the beginning. And then I think I get hooked on that point to the music. And I will continue doing music till today. The role of music in my life is something that started with the storytelling of my culture. To know who I am, I ask questions. I relentlessly go back to the elderly people, asking them, why this? Why not that? In our African societies, music is a daily life thing. It's the only thing really that bonds people together. Distances don't mean anything anymore. People will come miles away to come and spend that moment. Because that's the moment where we recall. That's the moment where we get together and we ask, how are we doing before cellular phone comes in? That's a discussion we're going to have later on. And being on stage to sing a traditional song for me was not performing. It was just doing what I love to do, what everybody do. And I moved to Europe. And I start hearing the concept of concert here. And people pay and come and listen to music. What? In Africa, nobody pays. Everybody come and sing and dance at the same time. So when I started basically doing that on stage, it was not really well perceived. When I was growing up in Africa, I was called prostitute among all the names. Because when you're a little girl, it's cute. But when teenagers kick in, everybody like, look at that one. I'm like, all right. But I keep on doing it and singing it. And I'm lucky again to say that my mom and dad, their love for music and art in general, have exposed me to the world. I discovered the world basically through music. And I discover also slavery through music. Because one day I saw my brother playing the guitar and trying to wear an Afro wig. He was born bald and he's still bald today. Never have any hair. So I went to him and I go, do you need to put the wig to play the guitar? And then he looked at me and said, I want to look like him. I said, by the way, who's that guy? He's African, right? It was Jimmy Hendricks with the huge Afro axis, whatever, with the snake on the back. You're black and you have a snake on the back. You're African, for real. And I went to my brother and I said, well, why is he singing in language I never heard before? My brother was tuning his guitar and said, are you going to stop one day asking questions? I'm like, if you answer me, let you play the guitar. And then he goes, he's an African-American. I was nine years old. I looked at him and said, what did you say? How can you be an African-American at the same time? And then he goes, he's a slave descendant. I said, what is a slave? What is a descendant? He's like, I'm playing my guitar, go ask your grandma. You tell me, go ask grandma, I go. So I rushed to my grandma, say, grandma, what is slave? What is descending? What is African-American? I start asking question and she goes, take a deep breath and give me a minute. I say, OK, so what it is. And she starts telling me the story of slavery. I'm like, up here is not working fine. Because I was raised in a household where my mom and dad always used to say to us, a human being is not a matter of color. You have to give every single human being on the planet the benefits of the doubt. That if you come back one day and say, you fail because you're black, that's the only time they're going to raise hand on us. Because that has nothing to do with that. Our ultimate weapon is our brain. So here I am with the story of slavery told to me by my grandmother. I couldn't put it together. I'm like, ah, this is not true. Then I turned 15. And I saw one day we were smuggling to the Nigerian TV because we had TV way after Nigeria. So we have to go on top of the roof and try to somebody up there. No, left, no, right. No, no, no, no, just right there. Don't move. So we all would gather on TV and talk. So that day for the first time, I heard Winnie Mandela on TV talking about Nelson Mandela. So two things just collided in my life, I'm lying. I look around to my mom and dad and say, you guys have been lying to me all along. How can you tell me to give the benefits of the doubt? If I don't know what is going on, something happened to me, I won't be able to understand it. And I was so mad that day that my only reaction was to go through music. All the time, music is always the only thing that really grounded me and gave me the answers to questions or even to the unbearable thing that happens to us. And I wrote a song called, as an accord, which means the day will come. My first draft was hateful and I've never written anything like that ever again in my life. And I came out with the song and I started singing the song to my father. And my father said, well, I understand how you feel. I understand the anger. I understand everything you want to express. But not under my roof, no violence, no hate. I never taught you that. It's not going to work. As an artist, you have to be the person that builds bridges, that have the key that open doors that are closed to open the conversation and always reach out to people. Music has nothing to do with hate. It's as long as you don't understand that, you will not sing and you're not going to write a song. You have to go back and write this song. Put your fear and your anger into something positive. What do I tell you every day? Your brain is your ultimate weapon. Use it. So I went back and we write the song. From the hateful song, kill everybody else that hated me, to the day will come when no one will hurt anyone that we all are going to realize that we are one human family. And that song is on my album, I, U, T, and Today. So if that song is also a reminder for me in the world we live in today, because we just judge too much, I left my country in 1983 because of the communist dictatorship. Suddenly the freedom of speech was gone. In the heartbeat, in 1972, the music we used to listen to on the radio was gone. No more Jim Hendrix, no more other Beatles, no more no music at all. But every morning is, and every day during the whole day you hear, ready for the revolution, the fight continues. And I'm like, what is going on here? So you have to call your father comrade, you have to call your mother comrade, and we lived in a paranoia. I mean, if you never, I mean, you guys don't understand what freedom of speech means. Once you lose it, you understand what I'm talking about because you don't even trust your father anymore. You don't trust your mother anymore. You don't trust your brothers anymore. Everybody becomes suspicious. And I arrive in the West, in France, and then I have to find myself fighting critics that used to tell me that I'm not African enough, that my music is not African, like everything I grew up with, the music I've listened to, from Beethoven back all the way down to Jim Hendrix and the classical, and the traditional music in my country doesn't mean anything because I'm African, I am entitled to do a pure African music. I say, what is pure? Am I pure, what should I do when I'm pure music? I mean, traditional music, African traditional music is in your classical music. African music is in your rock and roll. African music is in your jazz. Every music you take and you listen to, Africa have a place in it. Every breath you take, if you listen to music, you love music, you cannot deny that Africa is there rhythmically, melodically, in many different ways. So, I said to me, myself, what am I gonna do as an artist? My journey has been to build bridges. And I call myself a serial collaborator because the music that have been brought to me by all different artists, they don't speak my language, they didn't even know they were a little girl in Africa that loved James Brown. I used to tell my mother, when I grow up, I'm gonna be James Brown. And she goes, no, you won't. And I say, watch me, I will be James Brown. And then puberty kicking, I'm like, I guess you have a point, mom, can't be James Brown. But musically, I'm still, I think I'm a little bit of James Brown in me because the way I move and the way I do my things. So I did, in 1997, I decided after all that story that I told you before, I decided at that point in Benin, when I was growing up, that one day I'm gonna travel and follow the route of slavery through music. And I started a trilogy of album that started in 1998. I came to America to write with American writers. Then I went to Brazil and write with Brazilian. I went to Salvador de Bahia, I went to Rio, I went to Sao Paulo. I went to different part of Brazil. And then I went to the Caribbean. So I did a trilogy of album. The first one was called OREMI, was done in America. The second one was called Black Hover Soul. And the third one was called OYAYA because I needed to make that journey. And I realized during that trilogy that I can find my own roots back. Brazil is really vivid there. Here in New Orleans remind me smell-wise and rhythm-wise my country and my continent. And after that trilogy I decided that I'm gonna take a step back and go back to my country. And to bring traditional percussion player to America. And put them in a studio. And then we record around them. Tony Visconti was the producer of that album. When I told him about the idea, he was looking at me like, are you crazy? I've done this in the 60s. I don't know how I'm gonna do that. I say, you better make it happen. And I hate studio make it really comfortable for me. So we were an electric lady in New York and he put carpets everywhere and then we came in and then the Beninist percussion player brought so many range of percussion that he has never seen. So what is this? I said, don't talk, just listen. I said, how are we gonna write the music? I said, no, we in Africa, we don't read music. Not all of us. Most of the people don't read music. Just let us play. Just listen, please, give it a chance. And we start rehearsing and then I can see him transforming song after song. And we get to the studio. It was party time, basically. They would take this drum out and he would go, what is this one? This is the kalabash in the water. They'd do that. And it's just endless. My country is known for the rhythm. We have more drums than anywhere else I've known. I mean, the south is different, the center is different, the east is different. It just like crazy. So that's when I decided that I'm gonna bring all the artists to my world to see how they can relate to it. That's when I did the album Jinjin with Alicia Keys, Peter Gabriel, and Ziggy Morley. There's one rhythm from my family, from my village called Gu Bahon, and every time I try to put that rhythm in anything but reggae, never. So that's the roots of reggae. The only thing that worked in that rhythm of mine is to take the kalabash out and then I have my own funk. It works. That pattern, that kalabash is just like, hmm. But then people go, how are we gonna dance that? Don't worry about it, just move. Don't think about it. Don't think about the one, just get going. Just move along and then you're gonna be okay. So, for me, music is life. Music is about everything. And I put myself always in danger and challenging myself because I don't wanna be a boring artist. I don't wanna get bored. Music is too beautiful to get bored. So, I get into a new endeavor. We flip glass. Ha ha ha. Here comes something that I didn't know. But I know because I already did the Ravel Bolero cover. But it's a piece written based on the language of my ancestor in Yoruba. And Philip transcribed it phonetically. Let me see if I remember the first prophet. He goes, hmm. That's just one part of it. It's 20 minute green light. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. Come on, bring it. Music is a language we all have to learn. And it makes you feel absolutely empowered. Music have brought me to travel around the world. And there's one thing that have failed is this global village we are trying to create. Music is more available today, more than ever. But instead of opening up the people's horizon, making them inclusive, all of us inclusive, everybody living their own bubble. Because with your cell phone, you can create your own world. And you can ostracize the music you never listen to because you don't want to. Or because you just think that this one is better for you. We are losing the perspective of the richness of music that is out there that we can grasp and listen to. And one of the things that really make me want to travel around the world to sing is to bring people to realize that their comfort zone have to be questioned all the time in order for them to be a citizen of the world. We cannot create a global village if culture is not global. That's where performing arts center coming togetherness. You have the power for your performing arts centers to create this global village on a scale of a performing arts center. Because with that come from all around the world, you allow them in that space to listen, to participate, to question themselves and to empower them. It takes both of us for this journey to be a pleasant one. Only through arts that we can show the politician that this global village can be a reality because we don't judge. Our agenda is clear. Bring people to realize who they are. Give them the strength and the power that they need to take lead in their own life. And for them to pass on that, that you have allowed them during the show to take with them and to go home. And I wanna thank you all for coming tonight and continue doing what you do because that's where the future lies in our hands of people that love arts in many different ways and in our courage in this really difficult time to continue doing it with our guts, our heart, with truth and light for every single human being that comes to any performing arts center not to feel at odd but feel at home. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. First, there's not something more that I like to have conversations because I don't know it all. I don't have that pretension. I like questions and I like to move forward. I always think that tomorrow can be better than yesterday, that we have the power to transform our future. So the floor is open for questions. Please, don't feel shy, go ahead, shoot out. Good morning Angelique, thank you very much. You're welcome. First of all, you didn't say where your country is. I thought everybody know that. But I'm wondering as an artist and an activist today whether you are able to speak us freely back home and whether there are times where you find yourself having to censor what you say. Well, I learned one thing when I come to America is you have to stand for something or you fall for everything. And I learned since I was a child through the empowerment of my parents that if you don't speak up, nobody listen. That the person that talks truth doesn't have friends. I'll give you an example. I was in Benin, I just came back Sunday just for the airport. And I visited a program of UNICEF called the School of Second Chances because a lot of kids drop out of school from 10 to 17. How do we get them back to the regular school or how do we give them a job for them to participate in the economy of the country? And that school is mixed. So I walk into the classroom out of the 23 kids with only six girls. So I turn around to the mayor and I say, how come we have so few girls? And he told me that it's very hard to enroll the girls because if the mother don't understand what we are trying to do they won't bring them in. And that also some of them are already married off. So I spoke to the children, I spoke to the girls and the boys in the classroom where I told them that when I was going to school in this country there were not such a thing as a second chance school. So we are realizing step by step in Africa that the regular school can be really a hostile environment for the kids that cannot follow. So we have to have an alternative. Now what I want to say to those boys and girls here is that they have the chance to take a lead in their own life. That I want them to help me stop child marriage. That child marriage is what in this class make the girls not be here. Those subjects are not easy to talk about, but I do. And I said that if the girls of this country or all over Africa don't go to school we cannot achieve democracy and no peace. And I turn around to the teacher and say, please don't get them pregnant. Because the problem also is in school because we're talking about teenagers. So as I was talking about child marriage there was a young girl in front and then I can see her body just sink into the chair and I realized that she is going through that hard time. And I looked at her and I said, if any one of you in this room is facing this situation, speak up. We're going to help. We're going to go sit and talk to your parent. Don't be alone. Don't think that talking about it, they are ashamed to talk about it. I say it's not your fault. Your mom and dad brought you to this world to protect you, not to sell you, you're not a merchandise. So this freedom of speech in Africa, I keep it. And I will tell you how it is and I don't care. Thanks for the question though. Hello Angelique. Hello Evalique. Thank you very much for being here and enriching our hearts. I just wanted to acknowledge, you spoke about the performing arts centers and of course how important they are but I want to acknowledge of course the agents, the managers and the presenters all over the world because they have a job so important for the togetherness of people and publics. Absolutely. I mean, it's true. Me, I'm a lucky artist, I have two managers, sorry. If somebody is jealous, that's your problem, deal with it. Because I'm special, I need two. You know what I mean? And they take great care of me and they are very complimentary and I just have a new agent too that we start working and the process of, I mean one of the things that I try to explain back home because when I was in Pini in the minister of culture called me because I received two awards from Africa, best female artists from West Africa and best performer, whatever it is from Africa. I don't, I've seen so many awards, sorry, but I cannot remember all of them. And the minister of culture is asking me to help build a place where we can do concert, what is called a performing arts center, a proper one, not the one where you hit the drum, it just goes everywhere, nothing happened. And I said to him, before you build a performing arts center don't we have to form people for management and agents? Because every time I come to play in Africa, it's just a headache. I mean my manager can tell you that. How many emails you send to people for them to understand what it means to have a stage plot? I even went there and played once and I have to bring all the music. I have to buy them and bring it. There are no drums, no amp. So we have so much to do before we build a place. The performing arts center is just the jewelry. But before the diamond is fine, you find it wrong. And to get there you need every different part of what it demands to be there. As an artist, my manager cannot be an agent. We need to rely on presenters and agents to be able to do our job properly. To also have good relationship with presenter and local promoters. Because I've seen the difference between a local promoter that cares and the one that don't care. The promoter that cares when you arrive, everything you ask for is there. It's just like you cruise in, you go, oh, this is heaven. And you want to come back to those places. Because an artist, when we tour, there's a lot of stress. We are tired sometimes. And just the fact that you arrive at the performing arts center, the welcoming is amazing. Your dressing room is ready. The sound is great. Suddenly, all of those tiredness that you have goes away. Because you know you're going to have, you are in an environment where as an artist, you have to love and care for. And then you can give more than what you have. Every time my doctors always tell me, Angelique, give 75%. I say, I don't know how to do that. When I'm somewhere, I don't know how to do 75%. I don't even know how to do 100%. I can do 150% and 200%. That's it. Hi, Angelique. I'm from San Francisco. You thrilled an audience on our stage several months ago. You didn't mention your book. You're free to tell everybody about your fabulous book. But you know, the thing I most, one of the major things I'm struck by in listening to you talk is that you talked about the gifts that your parents gave you and the strength of the family. And I believe that the crisis in American education comes in large part because schools cannot replace parents. So I asked you what, if there is an answer that you can see about how, what we do with the kids who don't have the gifts of a family such as you had. Well, I think that one thing that is really, really different from the African society to the Western society is that solidarity is still very much strong and rooted in Africa. That when a child is born to a family, not only the mother and father have the responsibility to raise that child, but the whole family at large and the whole country, the whole street, the whole community. In the Western world, when I arrive in Paris, one thing that really shocked me is the disconnection that people have with themselves. They don't want to be involved in somebody else's life. They can see a child suffering. They don't want to bother at all. So parents have a role to play with raising the kids. But when you don't have parents, what else do we offer our kids in this country? Not much. So the question we should ask ourselves in America is how do we want our society, what to be and what legacy we want to leave for the next generation? We are so focused every day to work relentlessly. I mean parents have three, four jobs to make end meets. Education costs so much money in this country if you don't reach your out of it. We have divided America into clans. These people live here, these people live there. We don't live together. That's why the word togetherness ring a bell in me. If we live together, we care together for the one we love. America can transform in a heartbeat because I know I've been here long enough to know the determination of American people when they want to do something. Only that or the sky is the limit. We give ourselves a hundred and more, I don't know how many percent because we are determined to make a better life for ourselves. If we are able to do that individually, why don't we replicate that in the society? Why can we create schools that are based in inclusiveness of the children despite the skin color, the language to speak? And if they can learn at the same pace as the others, why can we have another program for those kids to do that? We are doing that in Africa. It's amazing for me to come to America, those rich countries, and see how much resources you have to put kids to school and how it's wasted because of politics. It's just crazy. So how do we as civil society play a role in it? When a government is dysfunctional, we have the responsibility of stepping in and do what we have to do. It's not only by voting that you do that, it's by helping in your home, in your neighborhood, in your city, and globally. Oh, my book, you want me to talk about my book? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, guess what? I asked my managers to find me a deal to write a cookbook, and I ended up writing a book that took me three years. I know how to write a song. I don't know anything about writing a book, but it was a great experience because when I went to HarperCollins, they asked me to write a book because the journey of my life can be empowering for other people. So that's where I started doing it, and it was not easy, and it's also helped me to come to a closure when I lost my father in 2008. All those great moments I spent with my father, and I didn't take enough time with him when he was still alive, and it's something that I was struggling with. Now, after I wrote that book, I'm a little bit at peace. It's called Spirit-Wising My Life, My Music, and you can find it in Amazon. I don't know. I don't even know where my books are sold. That is an artist for you because you don't care about those. That's why you have managers there. Come on, man. I can't think at all. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for all that you do and who you are. Thank you so much. So over just in my short period of time of working in arts and culture, there's a conversation or a consistent dialogue about presenters and institutions and organizations wanting to connect with more what's called experimental genres until they become more mainstream or talents or local acts and people in different communities. And there's always this, we want to bring someone in or we want to work with them or we want to invest in development of this programming or this particular area, but it's not fundable or we're not sure if we could sustain if we do that. What would you say or what would be your advice or inspiration regarding individuals that work within these structures that we are these systems, these funded systems or needing to be funded systems about uncovering and working together collaboratively to sustain these creative middle markets that need development but also are the backbone of the mainstream industry? Well, you have said it. Last phrase said it all. I'll give you the example of the rite of passage in Africa. My story, the story of my ancestors that have been told to me by elderly people. And that is something that keep going. I'll give it to my child and so on and so forth. The music of the traditional musician in my country from the north to south, the east to west of my country has always been available for me because they're always used to tell me in order for these music to survive, you youngster have to take care of it. We have known it. We pass it on to you. And I think as presenters, agents performing at center, it will make you more successful for you to reach out of the bubble to those unconventional artists because you need to revive the music you do. You do the same thing all the time. It becomes boring. You have a role of educating the public too. So if you bring something interesting, it demand more work than the name that is already known all over the place. You have to have, find a different way of doing the marketing of the one that are not known. Bring something different to it. Tell the people you come, this is what you're going to see, tease them, challenge them to come out of the comfort zone nicely. If you just wait for people to come, they won't come. And if you don't renew, you don't give that right of passage to young artists, new unconventional one, you're going to run into a war one day because there is nothing interesting that people are going to want to come and see. I'm who I am today because when I start singing and being in, every time people have the opportunity to have me to do the opening act, I'm like, who they? I'm right there. I keep on doing the same. Every time any one, any artist want to do my opening act, sometimes they tell me last minute when I come to the theater, I'm like, go ahead, please, sit there, play. Or I go to university and you have all those kids going, I sing too, we are the choir, come and sing a song with me, during the sound check they come and I bring them in. If I'm able to do it, no one can tell me sitting here that it's not possible. Just one quick one. My name is Antoinette and I have a cartoon character that I created, jazz woman to the rescue. Jazz woman to the rescue. And inside of helping the arts, I would love to appeal to everyone, especially to get old instruments that are in your closet, that are sitting here collecting dust, get them in good shape, and play it forward to a disenfranchised child. If we can consider to do that with our consciousness globally, we can help to, as well as help the schools, if you don't have an instrument, call the schools and ask them, do you have an art and music program? We live for that once a week. If you do not, we can write local politicians and have them to put it back. We pay our taxes for the refinement of our children. They are taking the refinement of our children away and we as an arts community cannot allow it to be. So thank you for being here today. You are an inspiration. My palms are all sweaty. Have a good day. Thank you so much. That's the truth. Let's do it together. Ladies and gentlemen, please show your appreciation. It is fantastic. And Angelique, we're going to put all the information about your book on an alert to all of our members. So don't worry about that. Didn't I tell you I don't know how to do that? You see, he comes to my rescue. You're going to get all the information more than you want it. And thank you so much for coming this morning. And thanks for doing what you do. Thanks for being who you are. Don't forget what you came here to do. What makes you come to Performing Arts Center is for you to be the bridge builders to give chances to young artists, to elderly artists, no age in music, no language, no race in music. It's one language. It's one humanity. Let's embrace it. And continue it. Thanks. All right, folks, thank you very, very much. I now declare this conference over. Have a great year.