Q Prize covered on NY1
We told you about the Q Prize last week and now you can see video from the event, courtesy of ny1.com, the website operated by NY1, New York City’s 24-hour news channel.
Named in honor of Quincy and presented by the Harvard School of Public Health and Audemars Piguet, the Q Prize was created to recognize and promote extraordinary leadership on behalf of children. The second-annual prize was awarded to internationally renowned conductor Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and his mentor, Dr. José Antonio Abreu, on Thursday (November 13) at Time Warner Center in New York City.
“Q Prize is about someone that we feel has gone and given everything that they have in their hearts,” Quincy said at the event. “Gustavo Dudamel and his mentor, Dr. Abreu from Venezuela, they save hundreds of thousands of kids from gangs and so forth, and I come from that same background. I wanted to be a gangster until I was 11, and I found music.”
Abreu is the founder of El Sistema, which has instructed more than 300,000 mostly impoverished Venezuelan youth in classical music. “I did this to demonstrate the potential of music as an instrument to develop society,” Abreu told NY1.
Dudamel, the music director designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, rose to prominence from El Sistema, a Venezuelan program that uses instruction in classical music to transform the lives of at-risk youth. Dudamel later served as conductor of El Sistema’s Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which has toured the world under his direction. “We are very proud and it is a huge honor,” Dudamel said at the event. “We’re very happy!”
At the event, NY1 caught up with actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, who attended to support their friend, Quincy. “We’ve known him for a long time and he’s one of the great music-makers of all time,” Russell told NY1.
“His work is an extension of his soul,” Hawn added. “As much as he loves to make music and give music, he wants to give it back, and the fact that he’s giving back to these kids right now is the greatest thing he could do.”
The event also featured performances by Michael McDonald and Wyclef Jean. The latter incorporated a shout-out to Q during an acoustic-guitar-backed freestyle rap. You view the video — which includes Quincy, Abreu, Dudamel, Russell and Hawn, as well as performance snippets of McDonald and a newly shorn Wyclef — here.