Stevie Wonder visits the MIDI Association at CES 2024
We had a special guest at our CES 2024 booth
As you may know, we are working on a Music Accessibility Standard to make making music accessible to all.
Thanks to MIDI Association member Audio Modeling, we got in touch with Lamar Mitchell and Cristian Perez from Stevie Wonder’s team a few weeks ago and explain to them our ideas about a Music Accessibility standard.
Then a few days Tony Baras, an industry friend from Ultimate Ears called us and let us know that Stevie had some specific ideas about the needs of people with accessibility challenges.
Thanks to Tony, Lamar and Cristian, Stevie visited our CES booth and we were able to explain the goal of the Music Accessibility Standard directly to him and gain his insight on specific needs of people who are visually impaired.
Having worked for Yamaha for many years, I had the pleasure of meeting Stevie before and was actually running the Yamaha booth the year that Ellis Hall (another amazing blind musicia) was playing at the booth and Stevie showed. Ellis moved to electronic drums and they did several songs together. Yamaha also put on a clinic a few years ago at West LA that featured Ellis and Alan Parsons. Stevie showed up to see Ellis at that event too.
It was an honor to be able to share our ideas and goals with Stevie and of course he agreed that making music should be accessible to all.
Come see us at NAMM Booth 10302 on Friday, January 26 at 3 pm for the Music Accessibility Standard panel discussion and then stick around to enjoy Ellis Hall, the ambassador of soul perform.
Ellis is performing at both our booth on Friday right after the Music Accessibility Standard panel discussion and then again at Ultimate Ears booth with Matthew Whittaker, Nate Barnes and Jeremy Jeffers at the Ultimate Ears booth 10720 on Saturday afternoon.