TEDxSalford

Davide Swarup: Leading Pioneer of the “Hang”

Davide Swarup is a leading Italian percussionist and one of the world’s leading pioneers of the “Hang” Drum. The “Hang” is a percussion instrument with melody invented in 2000 by PANArt, an evolution of the steel pan. Family name “Hand pan”. It is produced by the two inventors, Sabina Scharer and Felix Rohner, in a limited production in Bern.

Davide went to India in 2000 and discovered his skills in drumming – and he listened for the first time, the Indian santoor, live! He returned to Italy but came back to India in 2002 to buy a santoor and decided to become a musician. In March 2005, a friend of his introduced him to the “Hang” and he fell in love with the instrument. His first three years were a full intense solo playing to discover the instrument and develop his touch. He hasn’t stopped since. He has become one of the leading pioneers of the “Hang” and has toured several continents performing live around the world. He will be giving a full blown performance of the “Hang” at TEDxSalford 2.0.

Stuart Nolan: Deception and Attention Control Specialist 

Stuart was thrown out of school for reading too much and spent his youth involved in a range of nefarious activities including time as a pitchman, a fake psychic, a 3-card monte thrower, and a stand-up poet. When he grew up he spent 17 years developing for Interactive TV, Web, mobile devices, games platforms, and museum displays. In 2002, a NESTA Fellowship gave him the opportunity to travel the world studying with experts in traditional techniques of deception and attention control. Refining these techniques using current research in psychology and neuroscience he developed his expertise in sleight-of hand magic, hypnosis, cold reading, and psychological illusion.

Stuart has applied these techniques to new areas, researching how teenagers respond to the mysterious in new technologies, how organisations are regularly deceived by the language of strategy documents, and how the art of attention control can be used in design, media production and sport coaching. He has run his unique workshops with architects in Manchester, technologists in Lima, film editors in Paris, journalists in Sofia, museum directors in Norwich, artists in Madrid, Internet entrepreneurs in Kuala Lumpur, TV executives in Helsinki, game designers in Alicante, scriptwriters in Amsterdam, futurologists in Brussels, Rugby players in Yorkshire, and teenage inventors at the BBC.

Follow Stuart on Twitter – @StuartNolan

Classical Revolution Manchester 

Classical Revolution Manchester was founded in June 2011 as a chapter of the worldwide Classical Revolution movement. They play chamber music in informal, unusual venues to bring this incredible music to new audiences. The performers range from international soloists to professional orchestral and chamber players to students to amateurs- they bring together people who purely want to play and encourage audiences to ask questions and be involved. It’s basically bringing chamber music back to where it started- intimate, informal and relevant to all.

Classical Revolution UK is expanding into staging orchestral events in a different way incorporating other art forms such as film, theatre, dance, drama, and providing education programmes and workshops to children and young people from all backgrounds. They are also commissioning new compositions, running live composition events, improvisation workshops and playing at large family festivals.

Find more about Classical Revolution at their website – Classical Revolution

Note: We are still in the process of finalising the full list of performers. If you are interested at performing at our conference, email us at [email protected] today!