>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin with the events in washington and we talk firsto larry summers. >> the single most important issue for the medium and long run has to be what we do about education. you know, the most disturbing report of the country isn't any of the fiscal report it's the oecd study that demonstrates for the first types since george washington the next generation of americans will be less skilled and less educated than its predecessor generation. and that's never happened before, and it could never be allowed to happen again. >> rose: former republican senator from new hampshire judd gregg. >> unfortunately we got the

biggest problem. the big us one being the people who are retired in this country the generation that's about to retire is going to double the number of retirees from 35 million to 70 million. technically the generation should be fully retired by 2017. the entitlements that support that generation can't be afforded by the next generation. they simply can't afford the costs so you're going to have to adjust the costs. >> rose: we conclude this evening with yo-yo ma the great cellist and some remarkable musicians that join him. >> what music does is it stimulates so you can reach the sound toward that ideal. for a 20th century musician it's opening our ears rather than saying this is what i do and this is my specialty and that's it. we need to actually listen to everything around us and say okay how can we harmonze everything so it actually makes sense to more than one place at a time. >> rose: politics and

economics in washington and music at the table when we continue. captioning sponsored by rose communications

from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> last night after america had endured 16 days of a shutdown, bill came to the floor at 9:20, the bull was dispensed with the debate began and was over by 9:56. a vote was taken and a bill was cept to the president. less than 45 minutes, actually less than 40 minutes government was open. this could have happened three months -- three weeks ago. >> rose: the budget showdown is over. we have legislation from the senate and the house of representatives so that the government will reopen and the debt ceiling will be extended. we want to talk this evening about what happened in washington, but more importantly, where do we go from here. we begin with the president's

press conference this morning in washington. >> there are no winners here. these last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy. we don't know yet the full scope of the damage but every analyst out there believes it slowed our growth. we know that families have gone without paychecks or services they depend on. we know that potential home buyers have gotten fewer mortgages and small business loans have been put on hold. we know that consumers have cut back on spending, and that half of all ceos say that the shutdown and the threat of shutdown set back their plans to hire over the next six months. >> rose: a series of budget negotiations will follow in the weeks ahead. joining me from cambridge, massachusetts is lawrence summers he serve of president of treasury for president clinton and economic council for president i don't remember. he was a contender to replace ben bernanke as head of the

federal reserve. i'm pleased to have him back on this program. let me give you an assessment in the last three weeks both in terms of what was done, the risk that this economy and this country not only came close to but actually suffered from. >> charlie we preempted the grotesque and that's better than had we allowed a catastrophic default. but the president was unable to go to asia, the u.s. trade representative was grounded, and that set us back as the global trading regime moved on. we focused enormous national attention on what question, were we going to inflict the default on ourselves when there were many more questions that are much more important. what's happening at a time when this generation of americans looks increasingly like it's going to be less educated than the last generation of americans. a planet that is getting warmer.

an economy that's not producing adequate growth to drive standards of living for middle class families. that's what we should be spending our time arguing about, not whether we're going to meet our obligations that we've already incurred or not. so this will be remembered as a sad and difficult episode in our democracy. and we will get through it because we always do. but nobody should be proud of the governs process that produced the last several months. >> rose: you've been in government and different administrations. do you think it will change things that we won't have to go through this dance again at the beginning of 2014. >> i hope so. and my best guess is that those who drove us to the brink and then did not really get their objectives, will realize that it

doesn't serve either their political or economic objectives to do the same thing again in january. so if i had to bet there will be plenty of fighting about appropriations and the budget. but i would be surprised if the country's credit worthiness was called into question again. but there's no certainty in it and one has not typically lost money by being too pessimististic about what our political process is capable of as of late. >> rose: there's a saying about that which which i can't remember at the moment. nobody's gone broke under estimating the -- >> the american people. >> rose: exactly. let me talk about one we have this division, we have this senate and house passing what they did. now the budget negotiations

begin. what do you think having worked on these kinds of issues ought to be reasonable to come out of those negotiations that will be in the country's best interest in which democrats and republicans will make sacrifices and compromises. >> frankly charlie, what saddens me is i think we're mostly focused on what's not the most important question. the most important question for the country is whether this economy starts growing more rapidly. and extra two tenths of a percent of growth maintaining over the next 75 years would eliminate the projective budget gap that cbo's now sees. the gap that people estimated is in the 1-2% range. cbo thinks that even five years outlet alone 25 years out the error in the forecast is more

like 5% of gdp. so i think that the budget is the wrong frame for our national discussion. the right frame for our national discussion is how we can grow standards of living. how we can promote investments. on every important issue, there's truth in both the position on the left and in the position on the right. it can't make sense that at a time when we've got double-digit construction unemployment and interest rate in the three range and a currency we print ourselves, that kennedy airport and so much of our infrastructure goes unrepaired and undeveloped. equally, it can't make sense that regulatory barriers hold back huge quantities of job creating investment in some of the most distressed areas of our country like western pennsylvania and the types of jobs in construction, heavy

labor that are in most short supply and are burdening middle aged men across the country. it can't make sense at a time of unprecedented promise in the life sciences that we are slashing the funding for fundamental biological research. but it also can't make sense that various kinds of tort lawyer problems and the like do so much damage in holding back the use of innovative treatment. >> rose: let me stop you. >> you got to come together around growth rather than this obsession with the budget deficit. if we solve growth, it will take care of the budget deficit. >> rose: can't we have growth entitlement reform as well as tax reform at the same time? and that you will have revenues to do the things that you

believe are essential for america to be competitive in the 21st century. and to do with research having to do with infrastructure, having to do with productivity. and at the same time have entitlement reform and at the same time eliminate some of the deductions that corporate america has come to believe are necessary but may not be. >> charlie, there's certainly some changes in the entitlements that are desirable. there's certainly room to broad i the tax base. but those are means to an end. the end we should be focused on is raising growth and raising standards of living. what i was stressing before, was, and this is contrary to the washington wins at the moment. if we can pick up growth by only several tenths of a percentage, the budget fundamentally is balanced in the sense the debt

will not be rising relative to gdp. we don't have to flash social security. you know, yes, there's changes that probably should be looked at over time. but the highest benefit you can get through your whole life you make the maximum contribution to social security, your annual benefit is still well below $40,000. and so putting the stress on slashing back at a time when we've got so many opportunities, some of them are by doing pro business things the democrats don't usually advocate. but at a time when we've got so many opportunities to raise the growth rate, why the obsession should be with entitlements like the tells of a country is did we scale back entitlements. no. the test to the country is did we have a stronger economy for our children than we had for ourselves. and that's what's in doubt and

that's what we should be -- >> rose: the problem with your argument -- >> there may be some changes in entitlements towards that but we elevated entitlement reform to a totem that's sort of above and beyond the objectives which it's supposed to serve. >> rose: yes but sometimes when you make the argument you make and which i agree with and i'm not even an economist but it just makes sense to me that growth is essential. it sounds like you are by saying it's not an entitlement issue it's a growth issue, that you don't want to accept the idea that we live in a political world and a lot of people think that we do have an entitlement, that needs to be looked at. that you need to have a more effective way of serving the interest of people who need social welfare. >> charlie, look, everybody's perspective has got to be respected and there's no reason

why my perspective to be controlling. of course there's a role for compromise. but the people who think the center of our national problem is entitlements are wrong. the truth is, the people get $40,000 if they've made the maximum contribution throughout their life. taking some of that away from them is not the key to a better life for my children. people don't realize the numbers, charlie, have changed hugely. the projected budget deficits for a variety of reasons because the healthcare cost curve has turned, because the recovery has continued. they're not what they were before. and that's why we don't have to act like we are greece or italy facing bankruptcy if we don't slash the federal budget. on the current projective debt

will go down relative to income for ten years from where we are now. >> rose: judd gregg is following you on this program this evening, and i've already recorded it here. and anticipation of you coming and knowing your arguments i talked to him about it. he says i believe in growth, we all believe in growth. you believe in entitlement reforms he believes in get. he says the budget negotiation ought to be simpson bolles. do you agree with that, with simpson bolles on the right track with some of the issues and accepting the notion if we don't have growth we'll never grow out of the economic issues we have. >> they're good friends and there's some ideas there that are particularly right particularly with regard to tax reform. but you know, we've had ten budget super committees in the last few years. and we haven't made really any

fundamental legislative changes. perhaps we should take a different frame on the problem and focus on picking up the growth rate. remember, only a couple tenths of a percent increasing the growth rate sustained will be larger over time than arm the things that simpson and bolles are talking about. so yes, tax reform would be better to do, yes the right kind of ways of controlling healthcare costs are the right idea. but at a time when the values majority of the country has not seen incomes grow for a long time at a time when the economy is not producing growth in employment relative to the size of our population. i don't know why our national debate has to be obsessed around the deficit 15 years from now. and so yeah, most of the things

are on balance better but it's the wrong preoccupation i believe for our political process. >> rose: and where do you put the issue that's a part of the political conversation as well. one, what's happening to the middle class, and you reference death but also,x,÷ and part of e same parcel, the growing disparity between the poor and the wealthy in our society. >> these are huge questions and historians will look back at how they dealt with those questions long after they'll remember any budget deal. the single most important issue for the medium and long run has to be what we do about education. the most disturbing report about the country that's come out in the last few weeks isn't any of the fiscal reports, it's the oecd study that demonstrates for the first time since george

washington, the next generation of americans will be less skilled and less educated than its predecessor generation. and that's never happened before and it could never be allowed to happen again. >> rose: but is that -- >> it's about parents, it's about what employers expect. that should be the center of our national conversation. if we want to do something about middle class standards of living. >> rose: let me go there on a tang tangent for a second. you have been a university president. if in fact you wanted to change education in america, what will you do so we will not filed ourselves where we were in that ocdi report. >> there are many things but probably the single most important is to make teaching a valued and honored profession in

a way we have not. and at the same time hold teachers accountable for the way they perform, reward merit, take away tenure and expect high performance and then reward it. if we did that with respect to our pool of teachers, over time we would see significant changes in educational performances. >> rose: of course you know there are people across the aisle from me who would say the key to growth in america is unleashing the power of the free market and letting the corporations do things and not tax them too much and they will release their economic engine. >> charlie, there's truth in that. as i said at the beginning we need more public investments and

we need more private investments. look the problem in almost all of these debates is that the center is not holding. there are people who think that government can do it all. that government doing it all and becoming completely engaged in redistribution is the answer. and there's people who think that the answer lies with some kind of ayn rand libertarian paradise. the truth is neither of them are right. people who think you can have adequate investments in america without unleashing the private sector are wrong. people who think that even with the totally unleashed private sector it's going to work with the highway and bridges collapsing. they're wrong too. so what we've got to do is find ways of getting to the center and moving to much more of a politics of both and rather than politics of either or that we've

had historically. >> rose: i believe this to be true we need a new narrative at looking at our problems and where is our opportunity best opportunity to solve the problems we face so that we can unleash not only the private sector the public sector but also the capacity of the human resource which america had best. how do you, and this is my last question, how do you get this, what you want, the narrative of growth central to the national debate. so that it influences the political debate. >> yes, i think it's a process. it happens as more and more people on the outside talk about it. it comes to be picked up more in washington. it something that hopefully our political leaders will articulate more and certainly there have been important moments when the president has been very strong on the

importance of middle class standards of living and causing them to increase. it's a matter of concrete proposals in areas like education. but i think, and this is why i spent a lot of my life in universities, charlie, that cain really had it right when he talked about the ultimate power of ideas, the ultimate power of arguments, of how things are framed. and i think we do need now in a sense what we've just been through as a kind of -- this whole framing around the budgets and will there be an entitlement summit towards the question. let's have a summit on how my grand children when i have them will be living 25 years from now

and let's try to have bipartisan compromises about that. because that's really the fundamental question on which the american experiment depends. we've answered it successfully every generation so far. and the real question is are we going to answer it successfully for the next generation. >> rose: all right thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> rose: back in a moment. >> mr. president, i rise today in opposition to the deal that the senate is getting ready to vote on. this is a terrible deal. this deal embodies everything about the washington establishment that frustrates the american people. >> rose: we continue our coverage on the budget deal and the implications for the republican party for judd gregg. he's chairman of the senate budget committee. he currently serves as the ceo of the securities and financial market associations. i'm pleased to have him back on this program. welcome. >> charlie thank you for having

me on. >> rose: give me your take what we just saw happened in washington and the solution that was achieved. >> well i think like most americans i was discouraged, i thought it was dysfunctional i thought it was very counterproductive to our nation. it was unnecessary, it was an artificially created crises. what happened right at the beginning was they got off on the wrong foot because the republican small group of the republican party demanded something that couldn't possibly be negotiated on which was full repeal of obamacare. the president's not going to agree to that. democrat senate's not going to agree to that. a number of us did. and then on the other side of the aisle unfortunately the president took the position no negotiations i'm not going to negotiate. >> rose: do you really have to do that. the president said -- >> not on that issue. >> rose: we shouldn't be negotiating on the debt ceiling. >> i've served on the senate for 18 years. that's a fo mechanism. now granted it shouldn't have been handled the way it was but it focuses attention on what the problem is which is we're running up too much debt. >> rose: right. >> so there should be negotiations on how you're going

to address the debt. so for about -- >> rose: the debt ceiling about that or about some kind of extension. >> the debt ceiling is about that. substantively if you don't address the debt ceiling you're going to increase the debt ceiling and at some point people will make you pay so much for it you can't afford it. >> rose: the president shouldn't have insisted on non-negotiations. >> should have been in the middle, should have been in a room talking about things they could fix like entitlement reform, like tax reform. >> rose: that's what the president says they will do now. and that's basically what he said was look, open up the government. extend the debt ceiling and we'll get in a room and talk. >> well that's what happened, that's what should have happened beforehand. they wasted a couple weeks when really good things could happen. for example paul ryan put on the table about a week and-a-half ago a way to get out of this which was to take the president's proposals on entitlement reform which are fairly significant. and take a pathway to tax reform, merge them together and

have package. that's a pretty good deal as far as i could see. >> rose: john boehner says we're not going to buy any tax increases. >> the issue isn't tax increases it's tax reform in pie opinion. >> rose: doesn't he say we're not going to buy into any tax -- >> he's not going to give on tax reform any way the president is going on obamacare. i served on simpson-bowles and there was another group called fix the debt and we put together a package which i think was pretty reasonable. it has the savings far exceed the revenues and the revenues are all received by changingok: tax laws

and that's actually a republican view that you want growth. but unfortunately, we've gotten our debt to a situation and we have systemic problems which are cannot be fixed by growth. the biggest one being that the people who are retired in this country, the generation that's about to retire is going to double the number of retirees from 35 million to 70 million. technically the baby boom generation should be fully retired by 2017. the entitlement systems that support that generation can't be afforded by the next generation. they simply can't afford the costs so you're going to have to adjust the costs. and you do that not by immediately cutting the benefits, which would be counterproductive and actually retire economic growth but by putting in place policy changes which over five, ten, 15 years stabilize your rate of growth for those entitlement programs

and at the same time stabilize the rate of growth of the deficit and thus stabilize the debt. >> rose: do you believe if you had the president in the room with john boehner you could get them to do this? >> yes. yes, i do. actually i think john boehner is as committed to this as anybody in the government. >> rose: really. >> his problems are the number of members of his caucus feel -- >> rose: does that mean he needs the profile encouraged. >> what we need is education in policy. and maybe we've had some of that in the last week or two people who take positions which are dead ends, which are not viable, which basically can't be accomplished because they're politically in a divided government. see remember we're not a parliament, parliamentary government where the government in power can do whatever it wants because it controls all the mechanisms. we are a constitutionally structured checks and balanced government. that's what madison wanted, that's what we have. and so it's rare, in fact very rare that one party can get

everything they want. there has to always be a back and forth effort but if both parties can agree on the problem and i think they should be able to agree on the problem which we can't afford our debt in the way it's growing because it will bankrupt our children then a solution should follow. >> rose: in the end most people really believe that don't they, if we can't afford our debt we will be putting the country in a place that's not a prosperous nation and if it's not a prosperous nation it can't be a significant nation. >> that's correct. i think most americans get it because they live in a house where they have to make payments too. >> rose: it's a projection of their own life. >> as a very practical matter the decisions are tough. take tax reform. well if my taxes go down that's tax reform. if my taxes go up that's not tax reform. take entitlement reform. i'm happy to change it as long as it doesn't affect it. it becomes very personal when you start to get into the specifics. but there are a lot of good ideas out there. the president's put for example the president put on the table changing the tpi calculation

from what we have today to something called change cpi which is a much more accurate calculation. and if that were done, if that alone were done, not in the first five years, the savings would not be dramatic because we have very little inflation but over 15 years it would be huge, trillions. that's the type of change you could make without affecting people in a significant way. people can plan for it. simpson-bowles within raise the retirement over 60 years it wouldn't affect anybody over the age of 12. >> a couple things about inquiry party. what dj has it did not to itself are. >> a lot of damage. i think this last few weeks have caused the american people to sort of scratch their head. first they said the whole government's dysfunctional but they also said specifically the republican party does not seem to believe in being constructive in governing their shelters. and really that's not the republican party that's a few people in the republican party that grab the microphone.

and they basically took center stage and they spoke in pre populous terms which caught on. they were good one liners but as a practical matter substantially they didn't contribute anything. >> rose: what if boehner says we're going to go forward. would he then be giving up his speakership. >> i don't think that's the way it would flow. i think the way it should have flowed was this. the house of representatives are locked down ideologically because you can justify gerrymandering a district. very little exroaz. what should have happened was the president should have put the senate in a room, the senate leadership, maybe not the leadership but people who want to get something done and don't want to carry water. there's a large body of representatives who want to do something. and work out an agreement.

it would have have been a good agreement. they would have done essentially what ryan suggested the place to scwers ter the entitlement reform and a pathway to tax reform. if that agreement comes out of the senate the presidential leadership you have to have the president in the room. we are a nation that requires the leader to be in the room. take it to the house you would have gotten significant votes and could have passed it. >> rose: do you believe that sort of lessons were learned in this crises and that therefore because the president today at a press conference basically seemed to say i'm on the side of the frustration, i want to let you know that and i'm frustrated too. b if there was a real cost to this. three, we really do have to come together because it's not only essential to the way washington works, it's also essential to the essence of us being a competitive nation in the 21st century. >> well he's right. but he's got a role in this,

it's the most significant role which means he has to get in the room. he has to drive the process. our lesson's -- i didn't mean to cut you off. you asked what were the lessons learned. i think yes, in the sense that the microphones are grabbed by people who didn't want to solve the problem who didn't want to govern but rather wanted to hyperbolize and raise reason for the tax. i think there's a tremendous amount of frustration in congress especially on the senate on the republican side of the aisle with that sort of approach. i think most people in the republican senate and in the democrat senate pretty much really fought conscientious people, they wanted to solve it and figure out a practical way. what they need is presidential leadership to give them to allow them to go forward. but the president i have to say even though he saying things like that he's got to be in the room. this is the problem on both

sides of the aisle here. leadership was not exercised by the president and the republican party allowed the microphones to be controlled by folks who really had no interest in governing. >> rose: do you believe it wasn't in the room because of the principle he enunciated because he thought he could not, that he didn't want the principle to be established that he had to be negotiating the debt ceiling every time there was a crises. >> that may have been it but that was not, that is not a position which is defensible in the context of history because every president has negotiated on the debt ceiling. he served on the senate. he knows the only time the senate acts is when there's a pressure point when the congress acts there's a pressure point. pressure points are almost always things like continuing resolutions, debt ceilings or recesses. >> rose: i'm not here to defend him because i believe it's better to engage than not engage. at the same time wasn't he engaged, wasn't he on the phone with everybody, wasn't he doing things. he was the like playing golf.

there was a trip that was damaging to the united states. >> and he did call people down at the white house to talk but he didn't take the next step. there was a group, in my, this is where i think the failure occurred. first it occurred on our side by allowing the wrong people to have the microphone. secondly, there was a working group in the senate which who could have produced a package along the lines of simpson-bowles or a ryan proposal but they never received the support they needed from the whitehouse to do that because the leadership of the senate also was sort of locked down by the folks in their party hard end. >> rose: ryan was on the simpson-bowles commission. >> yes, he was. he voted against it but he voted against it because he said it didn't go far enough in healthcare. it didn't. the new proposal which they put

together does significant things on healthcare. >> rose: thank you for coming. >> pleasure. thank you for having me. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. >> think of the way that classical music and world music are actually genuinely not thought of being aligned in our minds we think they're completely aligned. >> rose: world renown cellist yo-yo ma seeks to promote learning across cultures, art forms and disciplines. he brings together an ensemble of musicians for more than 20 countries. the boston globe is called a roving laboratory without walls ♪ >> i play the base.

>> pretty loud sound. >> profession. i play violin. >> i play a drum. >> i play the cello. >> you ask where i come from. >> originally i'm from russia. >> minnesota. >> new york. >> i live in toronto, canada. >> india. >> very small town called kanisha. >> the ensemble is -- >> what do you have an element before. >> the ensemble is at this point a big messy family. >> family. >> family. >> you know how you can immediately become part of the family just in no time. >> it's a group of people who are willing to take risks together. >> it's a very adventurous

project. >> from around the world share curiosity compassion for their own culture and for sharing. >> rose: this year the ensemble celebrates their 15th anniversary called a play list without borders. joining me now is one of the world's greatest musician and our friend yo-yo ma he's a founder and director of the project. he has three members of the ensemble, christina plato a composer and multiinstrumental es. jacobson is an american composer and violinist and, he is a composer and he plays the japanese flute. he's also an expert on music, technology. i am pleased to have all of them here at this table and pleased to get through the names without serious mistakes. welcome. [laughter] all right, all right. so tell me how, we want to talk first about the project. so how has it evolved over these 15 years. >> well the big secret is i would like to surround myself

with people who know more than i do. >> i t 's a trick i learned a long time ago. >> basically the idea is here's a cultural group of musicians we started out as musicians, the world and how it could interact. so basically lots of people from very different population groups, different traditions, how can we work together. >> rose: here's what the "wall street journal" said on october 13th. mr. ma in addition to having achieved the rare thing that is classical music celebrity, his particular brand of musical philosophy is first and foremost a belief in the arts as a critical yet often ignored ingredient in solving the world's economic and political problems. >> well, i think the "wall

street journal" being i'm not saying that it's exaggerating but i think we can be a contributing factor, that culture could be a contributing factor in tackling intractable problems that no single group can solve. >> rose: how does it do that? >> a number of values of imagination and through flexibility in working together. in collaboration resulting in innovation. and that is one of the things that performing arts can do almost better than anything else because you know the results immediately. when world might suffer from deficit, empathy and to be empathetic you actually have to be imagive. and all of our problems require

imaginative solutions. would you say that's the way you have led your life. >> rose: can i just add a small thing to that. often politics and economics divide us. culture has the power to bring us together. >> that is one of its strengths, the convening power of making people bottom to do things instead of having to do things. nobody is forced to say you must show up. so if people want to engage in changing hearts and minds, then culture is actually a good way to start the converstion. >> rose: tell me about the gita. >> it's a type of -- i am from -- but the place that's on the map, it has had influences from all around the world, so i think the bag pipe is a general instrument, it'an instrumental that is almost in every culture

in the world because bag pipes were shepherd instruments. so bag pipe for me i think it's an instrument that really carries the meaning of what tradition is. because each has retained the original part of the instrument and has maintained its own and development. and innovating the instrument has kept the tradition alive. ♪

>> rose: how do you pronounce this? >> [indiscernible] >> rose: what is that. >> it's actually interesting to contrast with what christina's talking about now. you imagine the bagpipes very short of excuse me the dynamic range is way up here. i wasn't going to say loud but very loud. in this case one of its most colorful periods in the instrument's history is monks were using this for their breathing. the repertoire is more

introspective. it's a bamboo flute that's held vertically with five holes. it's the first instrument which archeology has discovered which is the bones of a flute. it's made into a flute and that's the prototype. >> rose: you play the violin. >> i do and also a modern violin but i like to think of it in context of silk road as the western comanche because our good friend, a member of the ensemble from iran has been a big influence on me since joining this group. and he plays it which is the spike fiddle so it has an end pin like a cello but its strings are the same that i use on my western violin. and in terms of empathy, i think early on when we first met him in workshop his piece, i didn't know much about his music prior to that.

but the quickest way in for me was just to literally get into his physicality and why my ear and therefore are we were able to play with each other. that's one way, start with the physical actually if you don't know all the background behind it. and over the years we've learned more about the background of each other's cultures. >> rose: so what kind of music comes out of this kind of cross culturization. >> well, i think if it's music that people like, it becomes a successful invention of something that is multilayered which in fact every form of music, whether it's jazz, or classical music or rock and roll, it's composed of an amalgam of different traditions but at one point it becomes known as this kind of music. and that's, we're just trying to make music that seems to make sense.

♪ >> rose: tell me about the ensemble without borders. >> the play list implies something current that's what

people want to consider. without borders is actually implies that the borders that exist, the political borders we know, economic borders we know also in terms of the demographic separation. but in culture, are the borders are actually in our imagination. it's how far you are willing to go mentally. to get to that edge from which you can see the other side. >> rose: one through eight is called play list for an extreme occasion. what's that. >> well, you want to talk about that. >> that's a wonderful piece that was written by composer and the thespian cj ire who made a connection of instruments -- chinese instrument bagpipe

india -- piano. and he borrows from jazz because that's his background. and all of that in one piece which represents that generation but also the past generations. >> it's sort likens cj's work to a great chef. like sort of an iron chef where you give them all the ingredients, how can you make a successful combination night after night. >> rose: you composed the title atashka. >> it's a zorrsaktian ensemble. i got to visit him in iran in a cultural exchange grant through the project and got to learn something more about the culture behind his music and one of the

things he wanted to show me was sort of the many layers of history that are in iran. >> rose: did your music change after your trip to iran. >> yes, completely. >> rose: completely. >> i can't say exactly how but i fell in love with the incredible connection between all of the different arts that seem to still exist there, whether they be the calligraphy or poetry or music. they share a very common aesthetic and i guess i responded to that aesthetic and ever since have been trying to capture some of that feeling of being in that place and time, you know. so with this piece, i tried to -- reign -- written a number for the ensemble and i wanted to feature it and strings and percussion. >> rose: how are you integrating technology with music. >> well i think the starting point in terms of what i do is sound. one of the wonderful things about technology is that we feel like you can get to like the

very micro level of sound and just discover all these new things. and certainly my instrument, you know, we don't play a lot of notes. i'm probably the person that gets paid the most per note, right. because we play notes just with one single breath, maybe there are two or three that we cracked on but the interior world of that one phrase that universe of sound that gets created within one phrase is a sonic world and i think again, very micro sort of there's a micro cosmo sound in there. >> rose: what are the skills necessary for life in music? >> ah, well, i think actually i think the very skills that we talk about that are necessary in the 21st century work force exactly the same ones collaboration, flexibility imagination and innovation. the no, sir important thing is

to listen because as soon as you're able to listen you're using all of yourself the ego the act of doing music, you are actually creating mental space for others and then in order to make a connection. and i think that's the thing, so when we play a piece of music, we're actually trying to represent an idealized world of some sort. and so we talk about vision or hope. you can't function without hope. we can't function without having some way that leads us forward. and what music does is it still lights -- stimulates the imagination so you can let the sound reach towards that ideal. so for the 21st century musician it's actually i'ming our ears rather saying that's it. we need to listen to everything around us and say okay how can

we harmonize everything so it actually makes sense to more than one place at a time. >> rose: all the things you're talking about musicians are true for living a good life in the 21st century or the 20th century. >> just going with that and what was talked about in terms of the desire to even play one note. i remember strongly on the road we end up visiting many music schools and non-music schools and working with students. one time we're working with a string player a cellist who was asking the similar question what is the motivation to make even one sound. and you were just saying of course you can practice many hours without thinking about it or you could practice maybe fewer hours but if it's really conscious in the moment then you will be more productive and i think that goes very much to the sense of even while practicing the cello or violin, one could

adapt the mentality of the world in a note. so before you even pick up your instrument what is the sound you want to make and who is it for and then all of a sudden the world becomes a better place in that moment of work. >> there are a lot of amateur musicians, some you know very well who play instruments and you ask them, you're incredibly busy, well-known. why do you spend time playing an instrument. and they would say it's because when i make a sound, it's really between just me, the whole world is contained within between me and the instrument at the moment of making those sounds. so you can actually it's like for golfers it's the moment where you are interiorizing every action so that you focus, you block out the rest of the world and you're doing something. that's the type of thing that sometimes is missing in our highly competitive world where everybody is sort of like i'm better than you.

it's hierarchical but if you can actually establish your own voice in something. it's not about how perfect it is, it's about knowing what you're expressing. and that's i think what happened to when you came back from iran, i think you found your improvisational voice as far as your interior voice. there's no greater thing and that is specific to collin. >> and i think it has to do with some, i mean that's what we've been lucky to experience in this group is the encounter with something you don't know, shedding light on what you do know and going, and helping you go further with that in a sense. >> so the philosophy of working with kids, with sixth graders is to say okay, this is what we do but what we're constantly learning as soon as we learn something, we're going to share it with you. so it's not like oh we're telling you this is the way it

is. this is what we're trying to do and then it's a great opening for them to say there's so much to be discovered rather than saying i need to pass the test. >> rose: here's the cd ensemble. a play list without borders a play list without borders. congratulations, this is remarkable. >> it's going to be. >> rose: i'm so happy you brought them. >> thank you. we're so happy to be here. >> rose: thank you very much. >> thank you. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ ♪music ] >> yes, check, please! people! >> it's all about licking your plate. >> the food is just fabulous. >> i should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spent in restaurants. >> i had a horrible experience. >> i don't even think we were in the same restaurant. >> leslie: and everybody, i'm sure, saved room for those