The Positive Effects of Singing

Carla Dirlikov-Canales is a mezzo-soprano singer amongst other professions including a cultural entrepreneur and an active social advocate -- she recently gave an influential talk about the power of music and how it enables positive thinking in the world. Canales spent the past decade serving the U.S. Department of State Cultural Arts Envoy in promoting American culture all other the world through master classes and educating orphans and poverty youth in music.

She begins her talk by telling the audience a startling realization she had come upon years ago -- she realized the fact that there is a real difference between what she was singing and why she was singing. This led her to ask some fundamental questions including why she sings and what role music plays in society, and how singing can make the world a better place. She also realized the huge gap between the music she listens to and the music that she performs. As she reflected on the power of music, she realized that it serves as a tool to something even more powerful, which is the human capacity to imagine as it can unleash our wildest dreams, creating what the world could look like if it were in a better place.