Victor Wooten

Acclaimed Jazz Bassist Victor Wooten joined CHI to dicsuss role music plays in society in connecting and empowering the collective spirit. The five-time Grammy award winner has just released a new book, The Spirit of Music, which is an inspiring parable of the importance of music and the threats that it faces in today’s world. 

Victor Wooten is an American bass player, composer, producer, and original member of the jazz and bluegrass band Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Widely heralded as “the Michael Jordan of the bass” and “one of the most fearless musicians on the planet”, Victor is, among other things, a loving husband and father of four, a skilled naturalist and teacher, a published author, a magician and acrobat, and has won every major award given to a bass guitarist including being voted Bassist of the Year in Bass Player Magazine’s readers poll three times (the only person to win it more than once.) In 2011, Rolling Stone Magazine voted Victor one of the Top Ten Bassist of ALL TIME.

His first book, The Music Lesson-A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music, has become a “must-read” in the music world. Offering an intriguing story full of anecdotes and mysticism, “The Music Lesson” has helped free the minds of musicians worldwide. His respected reputation as a teacher and speaker/lecturer on the subjects of both Music and Nature have garnered invitations for him to speak and teach at schools, universities, classes and spiritual centers around the world.

The follow-up effort to “The Music Lesson”, The Spirit of Music, is a wakeup call to the importance of music in our everyday lives, both individually and collectively.

We may not realize it as we listen to the soundtrack of our lives through tiny earbuds, but music and all that it encompasses is disappearing all around us. Only by coming together, connecting, and making the joyful sounds of immediate, “live” music can the world be restored to the power and spirit of music.

When not authoring books, performing or recording music, Victor focuses of teaching musicianship through his 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization Victor Wooten’s Center for Music and Nature. The center believes every student has a natural ability and blends a unique mix of nature studies to help each student realize and reclaim their “naturalness,” not only in music, but also in life.