of you.
I greet long-standing members
of the Forum community
and welcome particularly
those who are joining us
tonight for the first time.
This award celebration
is for me a very
emotional event.
It
shows that we come here
together not only to
have a productive week
but also to bond
together in a global
village where we all
deeply feel that we are
part of one humanity.
It is very appropriate
to open the annual
meeting 2019 with this
cultural celebration.
This is the 25th time
that we start our
annual meeting with the
Crystal Award ceremony
and I would like to use
this moment to remember
one of the greatest
musicians of our times
.
About 30 years ago,
my husband Claus was
honoured by the colony
where we live and
granted a wish.
He suggested to organise
for the citizens of the
village a concert and
to invite the star
violinist.
Out of this, a deep
friendship developed and he
became
a true mentor of us.
Always insisting to
integrate the
humanistic and cultural
dimension in everything
we were doing.
He joined us here in Davos
for the last time 20
years ago shortly
before he passed away.
We pay tribute tonight
by inviting the winner
of the 2018 Menuhin
junior competition,
13-year-old Clara Shen.
This friendship
resulted in the
creation of the Crystal
Award.
The purpose was,
and is, to honour
extraordinary people,
personalities who excel
in their art and who,
at the same time, are
role models for deep
engagement in
humanitarian or
environmental issues.
Many famous people in
the arts and culture
have joined the World
Economic Forum in this way
and we have countless
memorable moments.
Just think of
Andrea Bocelli or
Yyoyma who is a member
of the board of
trustees or Bono who started
his campaign
here 10 years ago and
has since raised $600
million to help AIDS
patients and who will
be with us as well.
Leonardo DiCaprio when
to made a passionate
speech for
environmental
conservation or the
princess of Africa who made
us sing and dance.
I could go on and on.
This year, we have
again three
extraordinary personalities
to whom we present the
Crystal Award.
Marin Alsop,
Haifaa al Mansour, Sir Sir
David Attenborough.
Marin Alsop receives
the 2019 crystal award
for leadership in
championing diversity
in music.
When Marin Alsop became music
director of the Baltimore
Symphony Orchestra in 2007,
she was the first woman to
hold this position with
a major American
orchestra.
She's also
the first woman to
conduct The Last Night
of the Proms and the
first conductor ever to
receive the prestigious
Macarthur fell soship.
She is leading the San
Paolo symphony
orchestra, guest conducting
around the
world including at the
London symphony
orchestra, Southbank
centre and more.
Marin has enabled women and
minorities to make a
career in music.
And while there is
still much work to do
for better representation,
what
she has achieved to
date was unthinkable
just a few decades ago.
With part of her grant
she started an
after-school music
program, OrchKids, 10
years ago with 30
students from the most
deprived neighbourhood
in Baltimore.
It was partly inspired
by the Venezuelan
system whose founder
was a Crystal Award
winner in 2009.
Today,
OrchKids has 1,300
students and Marin
wants it to grow to
10,000 in the next 10
years.
When growing up, Marin had
two posters on her bedroom
wall, one of the Beatles and
the bigger one of
Leonard Bernsteinn.
As
his best known
protegee, Marin was
central to his
celebrations last year.
She also knew Lord
Menuhin who inspired
the award 25 years ago.
We have come full
circle 25 years later
to celebrate
exceptional tallance in
music.
Ladies and gentlemen, please
join me in congratulating
Marin Alsop for
receiving the 2019
Crystal Award.
(applause)
>>Thank you so much, Mrs
Schwal, Professor
Schwab and members of the
World Economic Forum for this
incredible honour.
I firmly believe that art
has the capacity to
transform lives and
that every human being
deserves access to this
transformative world of
possibility.
I didn't grow up with
many of the advantages
that typically define
privilege but I grew up
with the greatest - I think
the greatest advantage of
all, in a
household that exuded hope
and possibility.
Learning to play a musical
instrument at
an early age gave me an
outlet to express
myself, receive
external validation and
develop strong self-esteem.
Unlike math, where you're
either right or wrong,
when you play a phrase
on the violin you're
always right.
The skills I learned, how
to motivate myself to
practise daily, the
consistency and
persistence are critical to
improvement, how to
work with others, when
to step out and when to
listen, these are all
skills that are
transferrable to every
discipline, not
singular to music, and
I believe that every
child deserves the same
opportunity I had to
develop these innate
skills.
When I told my
that - when I told my
parents I wanted to
become a conductor like
Leonard Bernstein,
everyone was telling me
"girls can't do that?",
my parents' response
was a mixture of
incredulity and outrage
and their response was,
"That's ridiculous.
Why not?" The next day when
I came to breakfast
there was a beautiful
wooden box, I opened it
up and it was filled
with conducting batons.
In my 20s when with
no-one would give me a
chance to try conducting, my
non-musical mentor,
owner of Anne Klein
clothing said, "Why
not?" He personally
stepped up to start my
own orchestra in New
York City called
Concordia.
Mr Taki invested not only in
the orchestra but also in
the belief that I could break
through the centuries-old
glass ceiling in classical
music.
While I'm always surprised
and shocked there can still
be firsts for women in the
21st century, I'm of course
proud to be the
first woman to lead a
major American
orchestra, a major South
American orchestra, to have
been the first to conduct
and lead a British
orchestra, the
Bournemouth Symphony,
so many firsts.
Subscription concerts
in Philadelphia, LA,
it's boring to go on,
because, you know,
there can still be
firsts.
I'm going to be the first
woman to lead a Viennese
orchestra starting in the
fall with the Vienna radio
symphony orchestra.
But being only one of a
handful of conductors
for such a long time, I
knew that if gender
equality was going to
arrive on the podium, I
would need to get
involved and probably
lead that change.
With
the support of Mr Taki,
I created the Taki
Concordia fellowship
for women conductors.
To date, 20 women have
received fellowships,
all working in the
field.
5 are American music
directors and we have several
working in Europe as well.
As I tell everyone, when the
front door is locked and they
won't let you in, sneak
around the side and go in the
window.
Thanks to my parents, when I
found the doors closed to me,
my first response was,
"That's ridiculous.
Why not me?" During my first
season of working and living
in Baltimore, it was
overwhelmingly apparent to me
that the children in
Baltimore city were in
crisis.
Drugs, poverty, shootings are
daily occurrences and public
schools are struggling to
find resources.
Families face economic
hardships leaving no option
for creative enrichment.
65% of Baltimore city public
schools are
considered low income.
32% of the kids are
living below the
poverty line.
After being here at the World
Economic Forum in 2006,
I was hugely inspired
by your commitment to
use your positions and
resources to better our
world.
I thought to
myself after that, "Why
not me too?" So with
the funds from my
Macarthur grant, I started a
program in
West Baltimore, as you
mentioned, with 30
first-graders called
Orchestra Kids or
OrchKids.
It is a year-round intensive
after-school and
during-school music program,
provides
creative immersion,
free instruments,
performance opportunity,
healthy
meals, academic
support, mentor ship
and summer travel toal
Baltimore's underserved
youths and their
families.
The students in OrchKids have
higher grades, higher rates
of attendance and fewer
suspensions.
OrchKids students have
attended music camps now in
Michigan, LA, New York,
Austria, Italy and the
UK.
This spring, our very
first OrchKids will be
graduating from high
school.
One graduating
senior, Asia Palmer,
just received her first
acceptance letter to
college.
She will be the first person
in her family to go to
college.
Now in its tenth year,
OrchKids is considered a
leading music education and
social change initiative in
the United States.
From those 30 kids in 2008,
we've grown to over
1,300 kids today who
all say the same thing
I said, "Why not me?"
OrchKids now serves
kids at seven schools
with students coming
from at least 15 schools
around Baltimore city.
There's a waiting list as we
work to scale our
program.
My dream is to arrive at a
place where OrchKids touches
every student in the
Baltimore city public school
system.
10,000 would be great but I'm
shooting for 85,000.
Music has opened the door to
futures filled with
possibility for them and
every child deserves access
to this program.
When kids
encounter the response,
why not you and find
themselves succeeding in
something they never dreamed
of doing like playing the
violin, they internal alise
this mantra and can
envision themselves
doing almost anything.
Thank you all for
inspiring moo to think
outside the box and for
supporting important
initiatives that are changing
lives.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you so much.
(applause) thank you.
>>Haifaa al Mansour receives
the 2019 Crystal Award for
her leadership in cultural
transforeign
investmentation in the
Arab world.
Her film
Wadjda from 2012, which
tells the story of a young
girl yearning for the right
to ride a bicycle, was the
first feature film shot
entirely in Saudi
Arabia.
It Premiered at the Venice
Film Festival and has won
many awards.
To get a sense of Haifaa's
influence on the culture of
Saudi Arabia, consider that
when she was making Wadjda
she could not be outside with
the actors.
She had to be in a van using
a walky-talky to direct
because men and women were
not supposed to mix in the
workplace especially in
public.
Today, in contrast, Haifaa is
a member of the board of the
general authority for culture
to advise on the development
of the cultural and arts
sectors in Saudi Arabia.
Recently, Haifaa
released two Hollywood
productions, Mary Shelly and
Nappily Ever
After.
She is the first
artist from the Arabian
Gulf region to be invited to
join the academy of motion
picture arts and sciences.
Ladies and gentlemen, please
join me in congratulating
Haifaa al Mansour for
receiving the 2019
Crystal Award.
(applause)
>>Thank you, Mrs Schwab and
thank you, PROENS
and for the World Economic
Forum for
giving me this amazing
award.
I'm really overwhelmed to be
here because I come from a
small town in Saudi
Arabia and this is big
to be here today.
I was
exposed to film as a
kid watching videos
because films weren't
legal at the time and
my father used to show
me films but those
films made me feel I'm
part of a bigger world.
It made me love the
world and made me who I
am today.
It made me be able to
challenge things like
making Wadjda in Saudi
Arabia and being in a
van and going through
the bureaucracy but it
is important to expose
young people to film
and art and culture
especially in
conservative places.
It
will change them and
make them embrace what we
mean by being a global
citizen and that is what we
want from places in the
Middle East, to create that
global citizen who
feels ownership of
their destiny and where
they - what they want
to do.
A lot of people
told me, "You're the
first female
film-maker." So from Saudi
Arabia, you must be very
brave.
I always say I'm crazy more
than brave but it is because
I wanted to have a voice and
I wanted to have a passion
and because I wanted to be
happy and we need to create
those spaces for people and
especially when you come to a
place where people tell you
all the time art is immoral
and will corrupt your soul.
Hearing a song is not
the right thing to be
virtuous.
To go against
are those voices in
your head and expose a
culture to music and
bring music to the
public space is a dream
that we should support,
culture and building
culture is really what
makes a difference in
the whole world and
thank you so much for
this.
I really appreciate it.
(applause)
>>Sir Sir David Attenborough
receives the 2019 Crystal
Award
for his leadership in
environmental stewardship.
What can I say about
Sir David that has not
been said?
Did you know that he was
recently voted by the
British as the most
trustworthy personality
in Britain?
(applause)
It may be more
appropriate to say that
beyond that he is truly
one of the world's most
beloved figures.
Sir David was born in
London.
From a young
age, he became interested in
collecting fossils, stones
and natural specimens.
In 1945, he
won a scholarship to
Clare college at Cambridge
university from which he
obtained a degree in natural
sciences and in 1947 he
spent two years with
the Royal Navy.
When with he got his first
job in television he did not
even own a television set.
What ensueded was an
illustrious career at the
BBC.
His work has included
many iconic productions from
the ground-breaking Zoo
Quest series to
landmarks including
Life of Mammals, the
Living Planet, the Trials
of Life, The Private Life of
Plants, Life of Mammals
and Planet Earth which
many of you have
certainly seen.
I am delighted Sir David
will present in this
room tomorrow excerpts
from the new Netflix series
called Our Planet.
As a BBC producer and
executive, one cannot
over-state Sir David's
influence on today's
global broadcasting
ecology nor on his
influence in making the
protection of nature an
everyday conversation
across generations in
the UK and around the
world.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please join me in
congratulating Sir
David Attenborough for
receiving the 2019
Crystal Award.
(applause)
>>Thank you, Professor
Schwab, Hilde Schwab
and the World Economic
Forum for this generous
and beautiful award and
for inviting me to
Davos.
I am quite literally
from another age.
I was
born during the haul
seen, the name given by
scientists to the
12,000-year period of
climatic stability that
allowed humans to
settle, farm and create
civilisations.
Those conditions
fostered our unique
minds, giving rise to
international trade and
ideas as well as goods
and making us the
globally-connected
species that we are
today.
Lot of what will be
discussed here is the
consequence of that
stability.
Global businesses,
international cooperation and
the striving for ideals,
these are all possible
because for millennia
on a global scale,
notcher has been
largely predictable and
stable.
Now, in the
space of one human
lifetime, indeed in the
space of my lifetime,
all that has changed.
The holocene has ended.
The Garden of Eden is
no more.
We have
changed the world so
much that scientists
say that we are now in
a new geological age,
the anthropuseen, the
age of humans.
When you think about
it, there is perhaps no
more unsettling
thought.
The only conditions modern
humans have ever known
so far are changing.
And changing fast.
It tempting and
understandable to
ignore the evidence and
carry on as usual, or
to be filled with gloom
and doom, but there is
also a vast potential
for what we might do.
We need to move beyond
guilt or blame and get
on with the practical
tasks in hand.
We didn't get to this
point deliberately.
It
has happened
astonishingly quickly.
When I made my first
television programs,
most of the audiences
had never seen a
pangolin, indeed, a few
pangolins had ever seen
the television camera,
but when, in 1979, I
made a series tracing
the history of life on
earth, I was aware of
environmental problems
but I didn't imagine we
were fundamentally
changing nature.
In 1999, when I was
making the Blue Planet
series about marine
life, we filmed coral
bleaching but I still
didn't appreciate the
magnitude of the damage
that had already
started.
Now, however, we have
evidence, knowledge and
the ability to share it
on a scale unimaginable
even just a few years
ago.
Movements and
ideas can spread at
astonishing speed.
The audience for that first
series 60 years ago was
restricted to just a
few million viewers in
southern England.
My next series, Our
Planet, which is about
to be launched here,
will go instantly to
hundreds of millions of
people in almost every
country on earth via
Netflix and the evidence
supporting the series will be
free to
view by everybody with
an Internet connection
via WWF.
If people can truly
understand what is at
stake, I believe that
they will give
permission to business
and governments to get
on with the practical
solutions and, as a
species, we are expert
problem solvers but we
haven't yet applied
ourselves to this
problem with the focus
that it requires.
We can create a world
with clean air and
water, unlimited energy
and fish stocks that
will sustain us well
into the future.
But to
do that, we need a
plan.
Over the next two
years, there will be
United Nations
decisions on climate
change, sustainable
development and a new
deal for nature.
Together, these will
form our SPEESy's plan
for a route through the
anthropacy.
What we do
now and in the next few
years will profoundly
affect the next few
thousand years.
I look
forward very much to
the discussions and
insights that will go
on here this week and I
thank you again for
this very great honour.
Thank you.
(applause)
>>This concludes the Crystal
Award ceremony.
We have now the great
pleasure to listen to
the concert by the Taki
Concordia Orchestra in
association with the
Southbank Centre Orchestra
and Royal academy of music
London as well as Clara Shen,
winner of the 2018
Menuhin Junior
Competition, directed
by Marin Alsop.
I want to thank very
warmly our
long-standing sponsor
Intesa San Paolo.
May I now ask the Taki
Concordia Orchestra to
the stage.
(applause)
(orchestra plays)
