Grey New York's fourth annual Music Seminar with Living Legends will feature Yoko Ono on Friday, June 25, at the Debussy. The 2010 Cannes event follows three years of high popularity for the Grey music seminar with legends Stevie Van Zandt in 2009, Tony Bennett in 2008, and John Legend and Donavan in 2007.
Yoko Ono is multimedia artist who constantly challenges the traditional boundaries of art, known for her groundbreaking conceptual and performance pieces, experimental films and music.
In Grey's annual seminar on music and its place in marketing communications, Yoko Ono will discuss today's music scene and the impact on brands and bands, her own adventurous music and performance art created over a high-profile lifetime, perhaps never as critically appreciated as it is today, and her extraordinary life with John Lennon and raising her musician son Sean Lennon.
Yoko will be interviewed by Tim Mellors, Worldwide Creative Director of Grey Group, and introduced by Josh Rabinowitz, Director of Music, Grey New York.
"Yoko Ono needs no introduction to anyone touched by the music scene for more than 40 years," said Mellors, former President of the Cannes Festival and multiple Cannes Lion winner. "Her marriage to and influence on John Lennon is legendary. The famous 'bed in' in Amsterdam, and the interview from inside a bag were direct extensions of Yoko's early art happenings in the Fluxus group. Her deep knowledge of the alternative music scene and people like John Cage, the founder of Fluxus, are seldom given the credit due for their influence on Lennon's solo career."
About music's relevance to advertising, Josh Rabinowitz, who is also an adjunct professor at The New School said, "Advertising is a new form of the music label. The most popular song in America, as well as around the world, is as likely to come out of a brand's advertising as it is from a record. It is a brave new world for musicians and Yoko Ono, who packs the room at 77 and won MOJO magazine's 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award, has braved new frontiers over her entire life. She will no doubt provide a unique perspective on sustaining a brand both for musicians and marketers."
