Roundup: Alicia Keys’ Wed night performance at NYU’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music

On Wednesday night, NYU’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts was proud to co-host with Sony Music Entertainment the great singer-songwriter-producer Alicia Keys in the inaugural event of a 3-city lecture and performance series called The Element of Freedom. It was held at The Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, to a packed crowd.

Hundreds of NYU students were given free tickets to attend the grand event.

Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music students got the special opportunity to sit right up front in the orchestra pit seats, where they were only an arms length away from the superstar as she did a Q&A with MTV host Sway, and then performed some her classic hits with a full band and debuted new material from her forthcoming album also titled The Element of Freedom, set to be released on December 1st.

We created some unique opportunities for our students to get involved with this event.

During the Q&A, Clive Davis Department students were specially selected to Alicia questions.

In addition, NYU students enrolled in Adjunct Professor Kobi Wu-Pasmore‘s Curating Live Music Events course were given the special opportunity to observe and assist the production and design team for rehearsals and sound check for this event.

Lucky students!

It was a tremendous success, but don’t take our word for it. Here’s the MTV roundup of the event. Here’s Billboard‘s article. New York Magazine. And Parlour Magazine. and Newsday.

(All photos on this page were taken by Adjunct Professor Jonathan Fine of Finegold Music).