Art and Society - classical pianist Alain Lefèvre

Art and Society I was listening to this show with local classical pianist Alain Lefèvre, and he made some interesting comments - (See text below, as his English is a little broken at times, the words in brackets are paraphrased for clarity). 'Education is a part of democracy – and I will try to explain myself - all the dictatorships in the world - they all come to power with the help of people who have less education. We are (currently at an historical turning point) – we have to wake up, we have to bring the arts and culture in the schools. If we (neglect to do this) we will have enormous problems because the children who are going to be able to listen to great music, the children who will be able to (distinguish) the difference between a book such as the Da Vinci Code and Shakespeare, we need those kids - because tomorrow they will be voters. If we do not bring that cultural aspect to our schools, we will have a dangerous society – we will have a society were any kind of politician could come and say (whatever they want and the voters will go along with them) – education and music are not luxuries – they are food for the soul, they are food for society. Our society needs, our kids need to see beauty; they are fed up with just listening to the mass stupidity that we feed them…' The whole program at: http://www.cbc.ca/studiosparks/features.html