“I will be presenting a live demo of how I make art for ‘The Glassworker’ and many other works using the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and of course, #Paper by FiftyThree with #Apple.
RSVP: https://s.apple.com/dE0q4n8A4L
Apple Inc. Store, Boylston Street / Friday, February 5, 2016, 6:30 pm”
The above is a tweet posted by the young and talented kid from Karachi, Usman Riaz on his twitter feed recently.
Usman Riaz, a Bundle of Talent
A Karachiite by birth, Usman Riaz is a student at Berklee College of Music with a dual major in composition and performance. However, this is not his major achievement and reason for popularity.
Usman Riaz is a film maker and can play multiple instruments. This, again, is not the whole story behind Mr. Usman’s popularity.
“I make music which I enjoy listening to”
Usman Riaz learned to play the piano at the tender age of six. He then outdid himself by teaching himself percussive guitar; a guitar playing style where the guitarist makes music by striking the guitars body and string and also a harmonium, harmonica, mandolin and percussion. Oh! And the most amazing part: via the internet. To cap it all off, the talented Mr. Usman also writes and directs short films.
In addition to all these achievements, Mr. Usman was the youngest TED fellow ever selected. Usman Riaz’s first performance on the TED platform was at TED Global in 2012 when his video “Fire Fly” was picked up by TED curator Chris Anderson. He was then, in 2014, selected as a TED senior fellow to present at four TED conferences.
Usman’s debut composition “Firefly” showed off his talent as an outstanding guitarist, he followed this up by collaborating with Ali Noor in Uth Records and then created magic by redoing Junoon’s “Saeen”
“I like to call my music videos film pieces because whenever I think of a music video, I imagine some rapper dancing or women clad in revealing clothes dancing to some Bollywood melody…”
So what has Apple got to do with all this?
Let me explain. Mr. Usman’s set of talents are so diverse that there is yet another talent of his that I must make mention of… He is not just an amazing musician and filmmaker, but he can create magic with his fingers when he draws.
And it is this drawing talent that Apple is showcasing at an amazing platform. Apple has roped in our bundle of talent to present a live demo of his art works (hence, the tweet above).
Mr. Usman, the youngest Ted Global fellow, will present a live demonstration of his art work process for an upcoming animated film called “The Glassworker”. He will showcase the artwork process and other works using the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Paper by FiftyThree.
A bursting talent from a third world country, recognized and endorsed by the largest company in the world, it seriously does not get better than this my friends.
Usman Riaz will be accompanied by Rachel Romano from FiftyThree who will be sharing tips on making the most of Paper, the app that lets artists create art in a whole new way.
A Bright Future for a Shining Star
With work almost done on his upcoming animated movie “The Glassworker”, Usman has just released a teaser for the movie on his Facebook page that goes by the name Mano Animation Studios. The one minute exciting trailer will also be shown at TED 2016.
With such major achievements under his belt, Usman Riaz has nowhere to go but up. And considering the platforms that he has received from TED and Apple, the sky is the limit for this young talent.
It is people like Usman that make us feel proud to be Pakistani today. People like him have shown the world that we Pakistanis are able to overcome any hurdle to showcase what amazing people we are.
To Usman Riaz, our shining star and all those others who have made us proud Pakistanis, we love you!
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