Private Screening of At-Risk Music on Film Features Live Performances Recorded to Wax Cylinders by Legendary and Multi-Platinum Artists Patti Austin, Les Paul, Reverend Run (formerly of Run DMC), Daniel Rodriguez, Arturo Sandoval and BeBe Winans

WHAT: Sound Inventions: Celebrating the 125th Anniversary ofthe Phonograph — A private screening and live performancehighlighting the early history of the phonograph, featuring newly preserved footage of Thomas A. Edison and Duke Ellington (1934 nitrate film, Duke Ellington Makes a Record) as well as artists recording onto old-fashioned wax cylinders. Event presented by The GRAMMY® Foundation's Music on Film Preservation Project in partnership with the Edison Preservation foundation, and sponsored by Con Edison.

Sound Inventions: Celebrating the 125th Anniversary of the Phonograph is just one of the many GRAMMY Fest activities surrounding the 45th Annual GRAMMY Awards, which takes place live at Madison Square Garden on February 23 and airs at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

WHO:
Live performances by: R&B/pop singer Patti Austin, GRAMMY- winning guitarist and creator multi-track recording Les Paul, rapper Reverend Run (formerly of Run DMC), tenor Daniel Rodriguez, GRAMMY-winning jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, and GRAMMY-winning gospel singer BeBe Winans. These performances will be recorded the way Thomas Edison first did in 1878 - into a now familiar horn and cut into wax cylinders. A recording will be instantly played back for the audience to experience and filmed for inclusion in a planned feature film documentary.

Speakers include: former NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) Chairman Bill Ivey, Edison Preservation Foundation Chairman John Keegan, "Access Hollywood" host Pat O'Brien, Recording Academy® President Neil Portnow, and GRAMMY-winning producer Russ Titelman.

WHERE: The French Institute Alliance Francaise
Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues)
New York, NY
WHEN: Wednesday, February 19, 2003
7:30 p.m. Remarks, Screening and Live Performances
9 p.m. Cocktail Reception

WHY: A vast history of music performances exists on film. Many of these are valuable documents of America's musical legacy, yet often their physical survival is at risk. In order to ensure continued access to our nation's musical legacy, the GRAMMY Foundation's Music on Film Preservation Project partners with major archives, institutions, musical families, and individuals to preserve these historical films. To help launch its year-long celebration of Thomas Edison's invention of recorded sound, The GRAMMY Foundation is partnering with the Edison Preservation Foundation on February 19, the actual date Mr. Edison received the patent for the phonograph 125 years ago.

The GRAMMY Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the Recording Academy, is dedicated to engaging students of all ages through music and arts-based education programs. With initiatives that include mentoring, archiving and preservation, and the Leonard Bernstein Center's Artful Learning® model, the Foundation strives to cultivate understanding, appreciation and advancement of the arts across the country. For more information about the Foundation and its programs, please visit www.grammy.com.

The mission of the Edison Preservation Foundation is to preserve and promote the historic homes, laboratories and papers of Thomas Edison, where and in which he invented the products that shaped the modern world. The Foundation will celebrate Edison's accomplishments and values in ways that advance a national and international spirit of technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and education.

Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies, with more than $8 billion in annual revenues and approximately $19 billion in assets. The utility provides electric, gas and steam service to more than 3 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York. For additional financial, operations and customer service information, visit Con Edison's Web site at www.coned.com.

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