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About Janet





Music may achieve the highest of all missions: she may be a bond between nations, races and states, who are strangers to one another in may wanys; she may unite what is disunited and bring peace to what is hostile.


DR. MAX BENDER

Janet Horvath, wears many hats. She has been the associate principal cello of the Minnesota Orchestra for over three decades, is also a soloist, writer, anti-racism spokesperson and award winning advocate for injury prevention.

Orchestra Musician and Soloist

Born in Toronto, Canadian native Janet Horvath joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 1980 as associate principal cello. She has appeared frequently as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra as well other orchestras.

In 2010 she was the guest soloist for the choral group One Voice and performed a Holocaust Cantata for chorus, soloists, solo cello and piano.

Recitalist

Horvath made her international recital debut in London’s Wigmore Hall in 1986; she has subsequently performed in recitals throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.


Chamber Musician

An active chamber musician, Janet has performed at the Mainly Mozart Festival and the Marlboro and Blossom festivals. In 2010 she performed the Bloch Piano Quintet, Ravel Trio for violin piano and cello, Elgar’s Piano Quintet as well as Astor Piazzolla’s Grand Tango for Cello and Piano for which she commissioned Tango dancers.

Anti-Racism Educator

Janet is committed to fighting genocide. She has recently created written and produced a multi-media anti-racism work entitled

It’s Not Too Late to Stop the Hate. She tells her story in verse while 175 archival photos are presented in a slide show and she performs her cello at several key places in the work.

Author:

Horvath is a recognized authority and pioneer in the area of medical problems of performing artists. She is a recipient of the Richard J. Lederman Lecture Award presented by the Performing Arts Medicine Association. She has published numerous articles in professional journals on the subject. She initially self-published her book,

 

Playing (less) Hurt—An Injury Prevention Guide for Musicians.

Her 2009 edition won the gold medal in the health category from the Independent Publishers Book Awards 2009, and attracted the attention of the world- wide publisher Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group. The book is now available Internationally at halleonardbooks.com in a rewritten, redesigned and updated 2010 edition.

Horvath’s noted seminars have been presented for professional orchestras, for youth orchestras, at conservatories, conferences, festivals, workshops and for hospitals from coast to coast and recently at the Westminster Reference Library of the Performing Arts, in London England.

A trail-blazer in speaking and writing openly about the physical stresses experienced by musicians she has contributed importantly to the awareness of musicians’ workrelated ailments and their prevention.

Horvath received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and a Master’s degree from Indiana University. Her teachers have included George Horvath (her late father) who was a member of the Toronto Symphony for 38 years, Vladimir Orloff and Janos Starker.


About Georg Predota

For some reason, bios always follow a predictable and rather boring format. Dr. Georg A. Predota holds degrees from blah, blah, blah, and university appointments from blah, blah, blah. His research interests and extensive publication record include blah, blah, blah and blah. By now, you are undoubtedly fast asleep! While these scholarly pursuits and achievement certainly exude a veneer of knowledge and authority—probably better call it perspective—they have no way of adequately capturing the enourmous sphere of human activities related to music that are of keen interest to me. What I can offer is an insatiable appetite for anything related to music, a blazing curiosity that is looking beyond agendas, attitudes and platitudes, the power and experience of razor-sharp observation and differentiation, and a smoldering passion for sharing my thoughts with those interested. Of course, if you’d like to see my professional qualifications, I’ll be happy to send you my CV.

About Jenny Lee


Jenny Lee
李嘉盈
 Rachmaninov once said, ‘Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.’ Agree and disagree. Music is not enough for my appetite and I determine to lead several lives simultaneously.

Life No.1: Jenny as an international award-winning broadcaster. She is a bilingual presenter and producer on RTHK Radio 4, hosting ‘Four for Classics’ (Facebook: Four for Classics with Jenny Lee愛樂同盟), doing interviews, integrated arts and artsnews programs.  She produced several documentaries on music in HK and China, and the one on ‘Central Conservatory of Music- A true story of survival, striving and success’ won the World Bronze Medal at the 2010 New York Festivals. She is a writer for FM Magazine, occasionally involved in RTHK TV and being MC for major cultural events in HK for various arts institutions.

Life No.2: Jenny as a qin player. She played in HK, China and UK. She was featured in two documentary films on qin, produced by Deyin Qin Society. She presented a lecture-recital on qin at Royal Academy of Music’s York Gate Research Event. In 07/2009, she played and gave an introductory talk on qin at University of Hong Kong Summer Institute. Her qin teacher is Lau Chor Wah and she is now studying her part-time PhD on qin at University of Hong Kong, under  Daniel Chua and Chan Hing-Yan.

Life No.3: Jenny as a multi-media artist and arts educator. In 12/2009, she collaborated with HKDuo in a successful multi-media concert, ‘Duo and Duologue-in memory of Nadia Boulanger’, in which she was the director, scriptwriter, actress (as Nadia) and dancer. Since then, she has been directing several music-theatre productions. She loves working with young people. Since 2010, she has been teaching a postgraduate course on integrated arts at University of Hong Kong, SPACE and conducting music workshops for ‘Arts Ambassador-in-School Scheme’,  presented by HK  Arts Development Council and AFTEC.

Life No.4: Jenny as an arts-administrator. In 1/2011, She was awarded a WKCDA Fellowship to enter the ‘Advanced Cultural Leadership Program’, organised by University of Hong Kong and UK’s Clore Leadership. Since 2007, she has been listed in HK government’s ‘Central Personality Index’ by Home Affairs Bureau.

Life No.5: Jenny’s education. She started to learn qin, piano, ballet, drama, painting, and Chinese calligraphy at a young age. Having graduated from Kings College London with a First Class Honours degree in music with the Adam Undergraduate Prize, she gained a Masters in Piano Performance and LRAM from Royal Academy of Music in London, where she learnt piano with Aaron Shorr, Daniel-Ben Pienaar and Patsy Toh, wife of Fu’Tsong. She also enjoys yoga, reading and travelling.

How can I achieve all these? ‘Chances and choices,’ Joshua Bell told me in an interview.

About Ursula

Professor Ursula Rehn Wolfman was born in Steinfeld, Austria and educated in Germany, England, France and the United States. She received the Diplôme Supérieur from the Université de Paris (Sorbonne) in Paris in literature and philosophy and completed her graduate studies at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a doctorate in French literature and art history. Her dissertation topic was ‘Ecriture/lecture: Jeu d’Espace littéraire, artistique, sculptural – Samuel Beckett – Alberto Giacometti’.

Her particular field of interest is the relationship between the arts, i.e. literature, architecture, painting, sculpture and music.

As an independent scholar, she has lectured at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C, at Georgetown University (as adjunct professor) and at many museums, both local and national, for the Smithsonian Associates.

She also lectures on numerous international tours for the Smithsonian Institution in France, Spain, Germany, Austria, Eastern Europe, the Baltic region and Russia.


About Matthew

Working as a freelance singer, record producer and project manager, Matthew enjoys a broad view of music in Cambridge. As a boy he was a chorister at Ely Cathedral – singing services everyday in under the magnificent octagon lantern. Later a student at Christ Church, Oxford he was a Choral Scholar in the Cathedral and performed in a number of consort groups and choirs. More recently he has developed his passion for recording and has been involved with productions for some of the UKs leading labels. He also produces performing editions for performance or recording, part of his project management work.

About Marco

Marco Moraes was born in Sao Paulo in 1986.
He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics and law at the London College of Law. He is currently a trainee solicitor at Shearman & Sterling LLP in London. A passionate amateur in terms of music, he proposes to write about concerts he has attended, books and recordings of interest, and on the intersections between music and other art forms.To Johannes Brahms
By Jorge Luis Borges

I, who am an intruder in the gardens
You have prodigated on the plural memory
Of the future, wanted to sing the glory
That lifted your violins up to the blue.
By now I have given up. To honor you
It is not enough this misery that people
Usually call, vacuously, art.
Whoever honours you must be clear and brave.
I am a coward. I am sad. Nothing
Can justify this audacity
Of singing the magnificent joy
—Crystal and fire—of your enamored soul.
My servitude is the impure word,
Fruit of a concept and a sound;
Not symbol, not mirror, not moan,
Yours is the river that flows and that lasts.

About Zoey

Even though Zoey holds a psychology degree, she does not believe that one human being can be a psychiatrist to another. Only beings that are more advanced than humans can truly learn about and cure the mind of another person.

She worked in the media industry and later attained an MA in journalism, leading her to realise that no truth is absolute in the media world, and therefore no news is objective news.

She has been in the music business for years and continues to be part of it. Over the years, she learned more about interpersonal relationships and the mentalities of different people than she did about music.

Zoey loves film, the arts, the theatre, books and anything beautiful, but only when it is created from the heart.

Her dream holiday would be to relax and do nothing but enjoy the sunshine.

Zoey currently lives in Shanghai.


About me – Tracy

I am Tracy, a local university student. Perhaps it is difficult to describe my complex character, but the general picture might be revealed by telling some of my interests (those in brackets are my all-time favourites).

-Listening to music: This is in fact a daily habit. Besides classical, I also enjoy pop songs, no matter local or foreign. Singers I appreciate the most are Jay Chou, Lady Gaga, and Lara Fabian.

-Thinking, travelling around mentally.

-Watching football matches: mainly the English Premier League; I support Arsenal FC.

-Reading: books (Metaphysics by Richard Taylor, Concise History of Western Music, He’s Just Not That Into You); novels (the Harry Potter series), magazines (Elle, Bazaar, Gramophone).

-Watching movies (Inception, The Devil Wears Prada, Closer, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, Paris Je T’aime, Match Point), and foreign TV shows (Sex and the City, True Blood, Britain’s Got Talent).

-Shopping, both physical and online.

I am glad that I have the chance to share with you my concert experiences and fragments of my life.

Musica Medicus

…………where music and medicine meet

Music lovers are often fascinated by the medical problems of great musicians.  The idea, that these great individuals who gave life so much beauty could suffer and die from ordinary illnesses like us mortals, particularly diseases that are now easily treatable, is fascinating.   Dr C.Y. Huang 黄震遐, a neurologist, wrote a wonderful book in Chinese, 醫說樂韻 , exploring the medical problems of famous musicians.  With his kind permission, Desiree will translate excerpts from the book.


Dr Huang Chen Ya

Huang Chen Ya, specialist doctor in neurology, was educated at Sydney University, Hong Kong University and Singapore National University.  He is a Fellow in the Colleges of Internal Medicine of Australia and Hong Kong.  He taught at Sydney University and Hong Kong University.  He was a consultant for WHO Neurology, president of the Hong Kong Neurology Society, Hong Kong Society for the study of strokes.  He is the treasurer of the Asia Pacific Society for the study of strokes and president of the Hong Kong Foundation of Neurology.  His current interest is on how the nervous system processes Chinese language input and learning issues.


Desiree

Desiree is a final-year university student in Hong Kong.  Her interest is in the performing arts, particular musical theatre. Her bilingual capabilities began early when she was invited to be the Master of Ceremony in both English and Cantonese for various live events. Subsequently she wrote synopses and reviews, and edited scripts in both languages for a film company.  She currently works as an Ambassador for the NetMission Program in the DotAsia organization, and is currently the editor of their Annual Newsletter and the Youth Internet Governance Report.


ACT4

“ ACT4” is the life-style magazine based on music, art and culture featuring people engaging in respective fields. We have 30,000 readership and about 5,000 of them are the subscribers , and we welcome them as members of  “Club Impresario”.

We give services for them to get the tickets for Opera, Concert, or Kabuki not only in Japan but all over the world. We provide them the concierge services regarding the good hotels ,ryokan(Japanese inns) or restaurants.

The profile of the members is opera or music lovers and NATURALLY they are active and outgoing enjoying music ,wines and good food.

Sometimes we hold seminars or cocktails after or before concerts inviting the maestros or artists.

For the operas or concerts we recommend, or the events that we hold, please check our http://www.impresario.co.jp
.

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