 Good evening, and a very cordial welcome to the annual meeting 2023. I express this cordial welcome on behalf of the Board of Trustees, and my colleague Bogebrend is the President, and all the members of the Management Board, as well as all the people who are here to make your stay here enjoyable and productive. We couldn't meet at a more challenging time. We are confronted with so many crises simultaneously. What does it need to master the future? I think to have a platform where all stakeholders of global society are engaged, governments, business, civil society, the young generation that I could go on, I think is the first step to meet all the challenges. But what is even more important is that we approach the future with a positive spirit, with a spirit which reflects human creativity and ingenuity. And for this reason, it's very appropriate to begin this annual meeting with the participation of great artists featuring culture and the arts. We have to uplift our hearts. We have to restore a notion despite all the headwinds of optimism, and we have to integrate into everything which we are doing, our hearts. Especially if we are involved with all our passion to construct and to shape the future, I'm convinced we will overcome the present multi-crisis. So again, a very cordial welcome, and I would like to ask Hilde Schwab to come up and to introduce our great artists who will be honored with the Crystal Award this evening. This year marks the 29th annual Crystal Award, which is presented to artists who connect us to each other, who help us reflect on the human condition and provide visions of the world that enable us to reimagine a bright, more inclusive future for everyone. Each recipient of the Crystal Award is as unique as the crystals themselves. For 29 years we have collaborated with Membrini Kristall, a family-run business in Kuhr, the capital of this region, who source and extract the crystals in the surrounding mountains here in Switzerland. Today we are delighted to celebrate the contributions to society of the following exceptional artists. World-renowned architect, environmental activist, and one of the most important public artists of this century, Maya Lin. One of the most acclaimed singers of our time and advocate for research at the intersection of arts, health and neuroscience, Soprano Rene Fleming. British actor, filmmaker, and humanitarian Idris Elba, and his wife Sabrina Tormila Elba, for their commitment and leadership in addressing food security, climate change, and environmental conservation. May I now ask Maya Lin to join me on stage. Maya Lin was born in Athens, Ohio, United States, in 1981, at age 22. When an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. She has fashioned a remarkable interdisciplinary career through her highly acclaimed art and architectural works, showcasing sustainable design and emphasizing a strong connection to the land and nature, history and the climate crisis. Maya Lin is now working on her last memorial entitled What is Missing, an ongoing multi-sided multimedia installation that emphasizes how protecting and restoring habitats can help protect species and significantly reduce climate change emission. Maya Lin receives the 2023 Crystal Award for her extraordinary creative talent by combining science, art and architecture and her exemplary leadership in the promotion of nature and environment. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating Maya Lin for receiving the Crystal Award. Thank you. I want to thank the members of the World Economic Forum and Hilda and Klaus Schwab for this award. It is a great honor to be here. You have in bestowing this award on me emphasized the importance of art and creative thinking within the economic world that you are all a part of. And I accept this award on behalf of my art that I hope makes us aware of how fragile and beautiful nature is and on my environmental project, What is Missing, that Hilda talked about. I believe that our imagination has allowed us to see possibilities, whether it is being able to fly or landing a rocket on the moon or exploring six miles beneath the ocean. All these accomplishments of today were imagined long before technology could achieve them. But we are an inventive species and once we can imagine something, we have always been able to achieve these dreams. With climate change, so many people need hope and realizable solutions. People are scared and people are thinking that there is nothing they could individually do that can make a difference or that collectively or politically we are not moving quickly enough to affect real change. Now I know some of you here are focused on solving these problems at the political, scientific or economic level. I on the other hand get to imagine and draw perhaps a different way to look at the immense problems we are facing due to the climate crisis. Can art get us to pause and look differently at the problem itself? For instance, if you took the entire population of the world today, 8 billion people, and we all lived at the density of Manhattan, how much space would we take up? The answer, the state of New Mexico or the country of Poland or Vietnam. So is this problem we face about population alone or is it much more about land use and resource consumption? According to the World Economic Forum, it would take 1.6 trillion in U.S. dollars annually to mitigate climate change. Well, what can I do as an artist? Maybe I can only point out some other things that we spend that amount of money on each year. For instance, we spend 1.5 trillion a year on alcohol or we spend that amount on tobacco, drug trafficking and meetings in the U.S. alone combined. What it would take to find nature-based solutions that would reduce emissions significantly and save biodiversity is actually equivalent to what we spend on tobacco every year. The point is we, all of us, are simply devouring the planet. The top 1.3 billion of us that are causing this disaster, we're having the biggest party on the planet and we're basically spending the money it would take to save a future for our children and their children and for every other species on this planet. So no, it's not about giving up that drink. It's about imagining buying one more drink or two for the planet and for our children's futures. Thank you. René Fleming is one of the most acclaimed singers of our time, performing on the stages of the world's greatest opera houses and concert halls. Honored with four Grammy Awards and the U.S. National Medal of Arts, she has sung for momentous occasions from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and the Diamond Jubilee concert for Queen Elizabeth II to the Super Bowl. 2016, René was appointed artistic advisor for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In this capacity, she has parroted Sound Health, a collaboration between the Kennedy Center and the National Institutes of Health. Sound Health has brought together leading neuroscientists, music therapists, and arts practitioners to better understand the impact of arts on the mind and body. In September 2019, the NHA announced a commitment of $20 million to support research projects to explore the potential of music for treating a wide range of conditions resulting from neurological and other disorders. While touring for performances, René Fleming has given presentations around the world entitled Music and the Mind, exploring the power of music as it relates to health and the brain. In 2020, Research America awarded René Fleming the Isador Rosenfeld Award for impact on public opinion for her commitment to research and advocacy at the intersection of music, the brain, and wellness. René Fleming received the 2023 Crystal Award for her leadership in championing the power of music and its relation to health, community, and culture. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating René Fleming for receiving the 2018 Crystal Award. Thank you so much, Hilda and Professor Schwab and the World Economic Forum for the honor of receiving this incredibly prestigious award. So I've had the privilege of performing on six continents, witnessing the power of music to move people to joy or tears, and now I've come to believe that the arts should be fully embedded in our health care systems. Our evolution is the key. Human and social connection are driving forces in survival throughout our history, working hand in hand with memory to create the stories of our lives. When I began as a singer, I was surprised to discover that the musical stories written 300 years ago are virtually the same as the ones we're telling now. So typically that's boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, except in my case this was opera, so one or both of them typically die. In any case, creative expression is a human invariant. It has been with us for millennia in every civilization. So what is the potential of arts and health? So I bet you all know someone who suffers from chronic pain, anxiety and depression, Parkinson's or stroke, dementia, or is just lonely and isolated. Creative arts therapies now treating people with all of these conditions alongside established medical treatments. And one of the miracles of modern medicine in my lifetime is the development of scanning technology that has allowed us to see into the brain. In fact, the word neuroscience first came into being in the 60s. Raise your hand if you remember the 60s. Oh good, thank you. Advances in neuroscience have sparked an explosion in our understanding of the power of the arts. So in fact, research shows that music activates nearly every region of the mapped brain. So check out the NeuroArts Blueprint, a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and the Aspen Institute that outlines the path forward. So the U.S., as Hilda said, the National Institutes of Health, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, is now funding the research. And the major pillars target childhood development and disorders of aging. The funding began with my friend and musical partner, Dr. Francis Collins, who you know. And my own passion stems from seeing these impacts firsthand. It is amazing to see someone with a traumatic brain injury or stroke regain speech through melodic intonation therapy. This is a technique that uses the brain's plasticity to reroute speech through singing, sometimes in just one session, or watch a Parkinson's patient move fluidly and gracefully with dance, or see someone with Alzheimer's sing lyrics to their favorite songs when they can no longer recognize the people they love, or see children and veterans suffering with trauma and PTSD express their pain through visual art therapies. In even better news, art therapies are inexpensive, non-pharmaceutical, and social. To heal is to make whole. And doctors around the world are finally beginning to prescribe arts and nature for wellness. So back to evolution. We are hardwired for art. You could start with singing. It's free. It's something we can all do. And it stimulates the vagus nerve. Just ask TikTok. Thank you so much for this honor. Oh, tears. I hope for good. Idris Elba is an award-winning actor, producer, director, and humanitarian who has secured his reputation as one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood. One of his most memorable performances for me was as Nelson Mandela in the Long Walk to Freedom. Queen Elizabeth II... Well, okay. Please come on. Queen Elizabeth II awarded Isabel Isabel with the most excellent order of the British Empire. The Princess Trust appointed him as their anti-crime ambassador in 2002. Idris Elba's charitable work of the film set is just as commendable as his acting accolades. He is a UN Goodwill Ambassador for the International Fund for Agricultural Development and also actively supports courses related to poverty, HIV, AIDS, at risk and disadvantaged youth, health, and education. Sabrina Dor Elba, actress, model, producer, and UN Goodwill Ambassador for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, works with a variety of civil organizations, civil society organizations, including Conservation International on Environmental Issues. She is passionate about gender equality and promoting the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. As IFAT Goodwill Ambassadors, Idris and Sabrina focus on issues related to food security, climate change, and environmental conservation. They both recently visited an IFAT-supported project in Sierra Leone where they met farmers who received support for rice production and assistance with rural finance after the Ebola crisis. Idris Elba and Sabrina Elba received the 2023 Crystal Award for their leadership in addressing food security, climate change, and environmental conservation. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating Idris Elba and Sabrina Elba for receiving the 2023 Crystal Award. Thank you for both of us, because we're both quite tall. Oh gosh. Look, usually this is him doing all of this stuff, so you'll excuse me if I'm a bit nervous, but I just want to say good evening, everyone, and I also want to say congratulations to both the amazing winners. It's such a privilege to be honored in your company. I also want to thank you, Hilda, and Klaus, because I mean this is unbelievable for me. It's actually my second award ever. So I'm really excited. Thank you. I also want to thank the World Economic Forum for this tremendous honor. Idris and I are obviously both extremely grateful and extremely humbled by this joint recognition for our work. Championing causes that not only have great importance to us, but all of which are inextricably linked and should matter to everyone in this room. I am so proud to say that to recognize us and the work that we do is to recognize all that we must do to continue to address and improve food security, gender equality, youth empowerment, and glorious, glorious nature. My mother grew up dependent on a small plot of land in rural Somalia. Our parents both left their villagers, their countries, for the possibility of a more hopeful future. And the promise of returning one day back to give back to their communities. This is a promise I want to continue. And while we accept this award with deep gratitude, we are here at Davos to highlight the people and the countries who are not making the headlines as much as my husband. Somalia, my home country is on the brink of famine. Millions of Yemeni children are acutely malnourished. Afghanistan, Central African Republic, DRC, Haiti, Sudan, South Sudan, all face catastrophic levels of hunger. Hundreds of millions of people are being forced to flee their homes because of conflict, because of climate change, in some cases, both. What's devastating to me is that in those millions of people, it includes hungry, small-scale farmers who are underserved and undervalued. This short-sighted thinking is so obviously flawed. Small-scale farmers produce about 80% of the food in parts of Asia and Africa and one third of the food for our planet. We are privileged to be here today in this room to provide access for those who aren't being heard, not as a voice for, but as a voice with. Shouting for change. We are here to say that the status quo is a road towards our own demise, but that we know change can come from here, from this very room in fact. We hope that this is the message that you take with you today. Rural communities are filled with talented youthful populations, vibrant markets, and enormous potential. We've seen it firsthand. Not only can they feed themselves, but they must and can help feed the world. However, they have little resilience when crisis strikes. Despite their critical role in local, national, and global food security, the global community is failing to meet their needs for greater access to finance, markets, resources, technology, and knowledge. Two often small-scale farmers are only one shock, one flood, one drought, or one failed harvest away from having to sell their assets to feed themselves. While we are here to say that they need your investment and your support, believe you me, it's really us who need them. Small farmers are at the heart of the sustainable food systems. They are incredibly efficient. They are not a major source of greenhouse emissions, and they do not depend heavily on fresh water for crops. They preserve biodiversity instead of depleting it, and they are home to a wide range of plants, insects, pollinators. The private sector can and must play a massive role in supporting and sourcing from small farmers, as well as using its influence to ensure that world leaders continue to invest in holistic ways to combat environmental degradation and rising hunger, and ultimately, support the communities that feed our world. I want to thank you all very much, and I want to pass to my better-looking half. It's quite enjoyable. Yes, she is a hard act to follow. Thank you, Sabrina. Thank you to the World Economic Forum. Hilda, thank you, Professor Klaus, for this honour. We are very privileged to be here and don't take it lightly. But let's be frank. It's taken decades for corporates, for governments, to understand for economies to be built to last. We need to empower the youth. We need social equity. We need to protect our environment. Today is well-recognised that economic, social and natural wellbeing of our planet are completely interrelated, and Davos may be one of the first platforms to get it. We understand the power and the change that can come from this room. Davos has become the de facto platform for governments, for corporates, for philanthropists, for activism, for protesters to mobilise quickly, which is why we're all here, because we can move with agility and speed, and your speed is needed now. Sabrina and I are not economists. We're not politicians. We're not big business. Well, Sabrina's big business. But we are involved with some really, truly great organisations through our newly formed Elba Foundation, which is helping us crystallise our voice and also those of the voiceless, the International Fund for Agriculture Development, who have changed in the way we address food security, and also protecting nature, mitigating an adaptation of climate change with conservation international. Now, these, alongside many of our NGOs in this space and agencies, need your support. They need your funding. They need your guidance. The poor of this world are not just looking for aid and handouts. They are looking for investment. Investment in people, in nature, in innovation, in partnership. What Sabrina and I would like to leave with you today is, please, do not lose courage, OK? It takes stamina to stay the course. To the businesses, keep investing in mitigating climate change. As Sabrina said, please invest in small farms and the small to medium businesses that support. With greater access to finance, to markets, to resources, to technology, to knowledge, and to people, we can define a different future. Thank you so much. Can we take our picture? This concludes our Crystal Award ceremony 2023. Before introducing the concert, I would like to thank Intesa San Paolo and its chief executive officer, Mr. Carlo Messina, who unfortunately cannot be with us tonight for their long-standing support of our opening concerts, which in the last years made it possible to experience a great moment at the start of the annual meeting, like the one we are anticipating now. The arts have a significant role to play in helping address global issues, and as such, need to be central when thinking about how people connect to one another, communicate with each other, and how, together, we understand the past, embrace the present, and shape the future. For this evening's concert, we draw our inspiration from the outstanding beauty and incredible fragility of the corals of the Northern Red Sea. Rapid ocean warming poses a risk to the survival of coral reefs, but a series of recent studies revealed that corals in the Northern Red Sea, one of the longest-living reefs of the world, are extremely resistant to the rising water temperature. The discovery means that this major coral reef ecosystem has the best chances of survival until the end of the century and beyond, but it implies that the countries of the region work together in harmony, in goodwill and in trust, overcoming obstacles and differences for the sake of protecting and preserving the Northern Sea reefs. It could serve as an example how we all can work together to protect other natural treasures of this world. On stage tonight, we have gathered artists from all four countries surrounding the Northern Red Sea, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel. In addition, we have artists from Australia, Japan, England, Moldavia, Portugal, Ukraine, Poland, Taiwan, and Switzerland. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to the Morphin Chamber Orchestra and Josef and James Tavadros.