Ken Medema

Singing the Story - Seeing by Heart

"Next time, forget the guru. Book Ken!"

That's what one company president said about the effect of the work of unique composer/pianist/poet/speaker Ken Medema.

Of his consummate musicianship there is no doubt .

"Concert goers leaving couldn't speak enough praise about Ken's music and talent. What else can you say about a man who invites members of the audience to tell a story about their life, then almost instantly composes a song about them on stage? He is a musician's musician."
-From Omnibus

Ken Medema has been used by a wide variety of corporations, companies, organizations, and non-profits to ensure the success of their events, ranging from annual conventions to regional sales meetings to diversity conferences. Ken can adapt to any need or format. Here are some ways Ken can enhance a meeting:

Concert Presentations

Ken's full concerts are 1-1/2 to 2 hours. He can easily adapt the presentations to include thirty minutes to warm-up the audience, follow up a speech with a summary song and end the session with a rousing call to action - or any number of combinations.

Musical Keynote Presentations

Ken can weave his life themes of personal achievement, reconciliation, commitment to the human family and motivation with his signature music and natural humor.

For any engagement, Ken loves to use his music to:

• Break the ice
• Warm up the crowd and make people smile
• Summarize keynote speeches in five-minute songs that attendees can take home
• Compose impromptu songs from personal stories
• Ease tensions and promote reconciliation
• Motivate people to achieve their personal best
• Make people glad they came

Singing the Story - Seeing by Heart

Topics

These topics can be presented as a keynote, an after dinner program, or brief warm-up for a large or small group session. Each of these presentations involves Medema's amazing gift of being able to take stories from his audience and sing those stories back after hearing them. He sings more than the story. He is able to hear behind the words to the heart of the story. Each of these presentations involves a good deal of humor, some crowd participation and a special song composed to support the theme or purpose of the meeting.

Dancing In the Crossroads

Medema celebrates diversity in the work place by encouraging audience members to tell stories about their own experience with the process of coming to know and appreciate people who are not like them. Usually the group is moving in a conga line by the time this one is finished.

You Are Enabled

Telling his own story about being a blind student in a seeing high-school, Medema illustrates that people can do far beyond what they believe they can do. He encourages the audience members to tell stories about those surprising times when people surmount the walls they thought were there.  He has received hundreds of letters from people who feel that they have been given renewed energy to pursue their dreams.

Building the Team . Building the Dream

A highly interactive presentation, it is best done with a small group or team who regularly works together. Medema invites members of a group to tell their stories to each other. "It is well known that when we know someone.s story, we have empathy and understanding on a brand new level," says Medema. "I sing these stories back to the group so that by the time we are finished, everybody knows something important about everybody else in the group. This knowledge of things personal, this shared life experience is an automatic team builder. It never fails."

Listening By Heart

This program is designed to help people in a group learn to listen beyond the words they hear. Medema helps people to listen the way he does, listening behind the words to hear what may not be so clear. Medema: "Sometimes a person.s pain or disappointment or anger or fear may not be obvious in their words - I illustrate methods to perceive these messages. When we know, we can be more understanding and more honest with each other."

Just Some Good Laughs

A compilation of Medema's comedy and music, this program is designed to keep everybody laughing for an hour or so. It does not try to make a point or teach anything. It's just plain fun. Medema asks people to tell stories about the funniest things that have happened to them recently. People really do get into the mood, and the stories are hilarious -- his songs are even more so!

A Meeting Planner's Dream -
Because Ken is extremely flexible in what he does and how he uses his tools, he is happy to design a program around your group and its specific needs. You can suggest a theme, or describe a need or a goal and Ken will work around that suggestion to create a program especially tailored to the needs you have in mind. "There are so many possibilities for your program," Medema says. "Let's dream them up together."

Ken Medema Biography
From the time Ken Medema was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1942, he has been unable to see with his physical eyes. "As a kid I was not widely accepted," he says, "and I spent a lot of time by myself. Because I have lived with some degree of being different all my life, I have some sympathy for people who have been disenfranchised."

"I started banging on the piano when I was five years old," he says, "making up crazy little fantasies on my mom's piano. When I was eight years old my parents got me a wonderful teacher who taught me the classics with Braille music and taught me to play by ear. And every time I learned a piece my teacher would tell me, 'Now you improvise.' So music became a second language."

Medema earned a master's degree in music therapy from Michigan State University and worked for several years as a musical therapist. While thus employed he began writing songs about his patients' lives, and they responded enthusiastically. In 1973 Medema began a career as a performing and recording artist, recording albums for Word and Shawnee Press.

In 1985 he founded Brier Patch Music, an independent recording, publishing, and performance-booking company with headquarters in Grandville, Michigan. Brier Patch creates musical expressions that celebrate all aspects of the human experience, with an emphasis on spirituality and such universal concerns as peace, justice, hunger, homelessness, and the environment.  Brier Patch's name is derived from the Uncle Remus stories that picture Brer Rabbit as having been born and raised in the Brier Patch, a place that is not comfortable for anyone else.

Today Medema performs in a wide variety of venues, from corporate conventions, to high school and university campuses, to major youth gatherings, to annual assemblies of national organizations. He and his wife Jane have been married since 1965 and live in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Their family includes son Aaron and wife Sonya and grandbaby Charlotte and daughter Rachel.

Praise for Ken Medema

"Bottom line, you add magic to every event you are a part of. Mutual clients agree that you are one of the best investments any meeting planner can make."
Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

"We thought we hired a singer - someone who could entertain our sales force between our presentations. But, when the lights dimmed and Ken began to sing and play, he transformed our rather bland pitch into an experience of eloquence and inspiration."
A company president

"Ken Medema makes music in arenas all over the world. I love his sense of play, his poetic gift with words, and his under-standing of the role of humor in fostering communication."
Emily Jane Style, Wellesley College Center for Research on Women

"Our task force hired a motivational guru to inspire our national sales force and we turned to Ken to perform during the breaks. Ken turned out to be the real motivator. He had our people on their feet cheering! Next time, forget the guru. Book Ken!"
A company president
 

Ken Medemas Partial List of Clients

• American Payroll Association
• American Red Cross
• Habitat for Humanity
• J Marriott Corporation
• Million Dollar Roundtable
• National Association of Music Therapists
• National Speakers Association
• PNC Bank
• Rotary International
• Service Master
• State Farm Insurance

For Complete Information on How to Schedule Ken for your next meeting, download the Media Pack  (pdf link below).

McKinney Associates, Inc.
Post Office Box 5162
Louisville, KY 40255-0162
info@mckinneyspeakers.com