Young Musicians Can Make 2021 a Perfect Year

It’s a new year, and 2020 has come and gone, but there is a long laundry list of challenges before us. And there are new opportunities to resolve those challenges.

We’re all looking for ways to change the future for the better. It seems like young people frequently have answers that are unencumbered from the past. As an educator for thirty-five years, I am always star-struck when a student comes up with an answer to a problem that works - and is in the area of genius thinking. With this in mind, it seems like a good idea to explore several young people and youth-centered experiences that have literally blown me away as the last weeks of 2020 grind to litter dust.

And here they are, introducing Giovanni Mazza, a fifteen-year-old film actor and concert/hip-hop Chicago violinist who has redefined violin performance, taking it from Mozart to NBA half-time shows. Secondly, a not so young Tommy Shaw (STYX) accompanied by the powerfully moving Contemporary Youth Orchestra from Cleveland, performing Shaw’s Fooling Yourself/Angry Young Man, which will leave you speechless, but energized to brainstorm your own organization's possibilities for making 2021 the best year of the century. And finally, Marcin Patrzalek, an eighteen-year-old acoustic guitarist from Poland, who combines unbelievable instrumental guitar, while he taps out percussion rhythms with his fingers on the wood-crafted Ibanez acoustic guitar.

For starts, Giovanni Mazza. I first learned about Giovanni after hearing of his performance at the NBA 2016 All-Stars Rising Stars basketball game at the Canada Centre in Toronto. But before I reveal too much about this remarkable young man, take a few minutes to watch for yourself this extraordinary mix of NBA Basketball and hip-hop violin featuring Giovanni Mazza…

Giovanni Mazza Reinventing Violin Performance courtesy of INSIDE EDITION

Two years later he performed the 2018 NBA All-Stars Saturday Night Dunk Contest at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Since then, Giovanni has performed hip-hop violin half-time shows and the National Anthem at NBA venues and games across the country. Steve Harvey, who hosted Giovanni on his show 12 months before Covid-19, simply said, “Unbelievable!”

Young Mazza has also appeared in a TV show on Nickelodeon, Bella and the Bulldogs, and had roles in other films, First String, Evaporate, and For Ian. You will find links to Giovanni's violin performances at the end of this article.

But what can we learn from a bright, athletic, honor student and multi-talented musician (Giovanni also plays the guitar), that can propel 2021 into a successful year for all of us? What can this fifteen-year-old teach us that will help us dig our way out of the black hole of 2020?

Giovanni has a smart, calculated notion about reinvention. The violin first appeared 500 years ago in Northern Italy. For almost all that time it has been a classical musical instrument, except when Western Americana adopted the violin as a fiddle. But Giovanni took the instrument into unchartered territory. He added theatrical dance movement to the contemporary popular musical sounds of hip-hop. Giovanni admits it is cool when people write on his Instagram post, “You inspire me.” And he does inspire them, but not just Instagram-ers. Giovanni has shown us a pathway, a journey to achieve new ideas, new concepts and new objectives that go way beyond the same old business and corporate formulas that have all but died. For example, remember Blockbuster Video? When Red Box became the leading DVD movie rental venue, it initiated the demise of Blockbuster, who failed to change and find a better way to serve customers. What we need in 2021 are unchartered ideas that bring back commerce and productivity, but in a way that serves, excites, and motivates us all.

Giovanni Mazza is the match stick to light that flame of success.

In the early morning hours on January 1, 2021, I sat in my home office, as I haven’t been in my University office since March 5, 2020. The North Georgia Mountain darkness was punctuated by cold winds and driving rains, as a music video appeared on my social media page. It was Tommy Shaw, from STYX, and a group of youthful musicians performing Shaw’s 1977, Fooling Yourself/Angry Young Man song. I had graduated three years before the song’s release, from Stephen F. Austin University in Texas, and remember it fondly. However, this version I watched on the first day of 2021, left me speechless and with tears streaming down my face. Like me, you have probably heard the song many times, but as we kick the tragedy of 2020 out the door, just watch the entire piece, to the very last note, and use speaker enhanced sound if possible. And grab a tissue...

Tommy Shaw and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra 'Fooling Yourself'

The music video is astounding in so many ways. The lyrics that Shaw penned in the mid-seventies describes us all as Covid-19, racism, and failed businesses slap us to the ground. But in the end, there is hope. Tommy Shaw says in his lyrics we must survive...

You're fooling yourself

if you don't believe it,

You're kidding yourself

if you don't believe it,

Get up, get back on your feet

You're the one they can't beat

and you know it,

Come on, let's see what you've got.    -Tommy Shaw, Fooling Yourself

But it is more than the song we are all familiar with; a song that has won numerous awards and accolades. It is this particular performance, isn’t it? It is the talented membership of Cleveland’s Contemporary Youth Orchestra. And they are not just playing another contemporary rendition for a CYS concert series. Look in their youthful eyes, check out their focus, their adolescent hands and arms and bodies all of it expressive - in unison - as if ONE person was performing. This is teamwork, teamwork that is missing from our post 2020 culture, not just in the United States, but around the Globe. Watching the performance, we know what it is that causes us to cry, to cheer, to applaud and scream like Beatles fans in 1963. It is the gut reaction that they all believe in what they are doing. They all know that it becomes not just a series of conjoined notes and musical phrases set at different tempos, but moving like water, like air flow, like life!

Oh how we need these extraordinary young people to give us a 2021 music-related lesson on life, on how to succeed, how to get to December 31, 2021 intact and more mature and more successful. And perhaps like Tommy Shaw and these youth, more inclusive, more satisfied that we lived 365 days…together. Tommy Shaw is an amazing teacher, as are the directors at Contemporary Youth Orchestra, and the young people, are all amazing. We must listen, and learn and buy into their lesson of unity, less we parish playing different notes, different songs, on different pages and no one wanting to hear our performance on the next New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2021.

Finally, meet Marcin Patrzalek. I was introduced to Marcin two years ago, as I produced a celebration video for the Atlanta United Futbol 2018 MLS Championship. Marcin was only 17 then, and had become a European hit with his acoustic guitar style that utilizes finger tapping to produce percussion background for his stringed performance. Here is Marcin at age 18 playing his adaptation of Shape of You, written by Ed Sheeran...

Marcin Patrzalek 'Shape of You' Ed Sheeran

One thing is certain, Marcin Patrzalek has style. And self-confidence. And courage. When we watch Marcin tapping and strumming, using both hands non-stop, we don’t question his belief in himself. His facial gestures and body movement make it clear he is confident and certain at what happens next. He has mastered the guitar chords, the rhythm, and pauses in tempo, and he has the plan. So much so, it is hard to believe we are only hearing Marcin and not a small band.

In 2021, we must be confident. We must make a plan, join others to the parade, and know it so well that it is our mantra. We must return to a time when we believe in our self, our neighbors, and our leaders. Our businesses, schools, families and friends must become flexible, safe, and motivated to succeed. We will only get to New Year's Eve December 31, 2021, if we really believe.

Our goal from these youngsters is simple: be creative, be unified and believe in what we are attempting to accomplish. I hope you see what I see, that they have much to teach use starting today, to make the next 364 days more successful.

Richard D. Stafford, Writer

Additional Links:

Giovanni Mazza Performance playing Acoustic Guitar and Violin

Marcin Patrzalek Performing SALT

Roundabout Jon Anderson and Contemporary Youth Orchestra

Credits and References:

Lyrics to Fooling Yourself used courtesy of Tommy Shaw and A&M Records

Video of Tommy Shaw and Contemporary Youth Orchestra used courtesy of both organizations.

Video of Marcin Patrzalek used courtesy of the performer and Ed Sheeran, Lisa Lopes, Tameka Harris, Kevin Briggs, Johnny McDaid, Asylum/Atlantic Records

Giovanni Mazza video used courtesy of Inside Edition, Youtube