Through my association with Suzemuse, I got asked to handle the audio duties for the TEDxOttawa Conference. For those who don’t know TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, and Design”, and it’s a conference held each year in Montery, California. It’s designed to bring together thinkers in all three disciplines to discuss, as their slogan says, “Ideas worth sharing”. Of course the problem is that the main TED conference is about $6000 to attend, which puts it out of reach of most. So in addition to making video podcasts of the talks available to all, this year TED decided to start TEDx – smaller local conferences under the aegis of the TED itself.

This years, TEDxOttawa was held on December 6th at the BitHeads Theatre. It was a day of inspiring, thought provoking, indeed, life changing speakers (check out our final speaker Ray Zahab here).  But for me one of the high points was Jowi Taylor and “Voyageur” – The Six String Nation Guitar.

“Voyageur” is a piece of true Canadiana – something we can truly be proud of. Not only is constructed from various pieces of Canadian history – from Pierre Trudeau’s Canoe Paddle, to Wayne Gretzky’s hockey stick, to wood from the Golden Spruce- but it is an absolutely AMAZING instrument to play. And I was honored to be able to play it at the After-party. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this guitar though is Jowi himself. While he has seen this instrument played by the who’s who of the Canadian Music scene (it’s the featured instrument on the Canada Day Stage here in Ottawa), to him it’s most exciting when the local musicians get to play. Check out the site, and if you’re able, please make a donation to this wonderful project.

Now if only I could have gotten that guitar on the Donkey score… well maybe the next one…

Jowi Taylor and Myself