Photograph by Kathleen Karn

Distinguished American scholar Richard Taruskin holds the Class of 1955 Chair at the University of California, Berkeley. His work covers an extensive line-up of subjects ranging from Russian music to performance theory and from Renaissance music to theories of modernism. In addition to numerous recordings as choral director of the Columbia University Collegium Musicum and Cappella Nova, Taruskin has performed regularly as gambist with the Aulos Ensemble and edited several Renaissance and early Baroque works. Other publications include The Oxford History of Western Music, 6 volumes, 2005; Defining Russia Musically; Stravinsky and the Russian Tradition; Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance; Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue; and Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. Richard Taruskin has received the Greenberg Prize (1978), the Alfred Einstein Award (1980), the Dent Medal (1987), and the Kinkeldey Prize (1997 and 2006).

Kishore Mahbubani was appointed the first Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy on 16 August 2004. Currently, he is the Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY SPP) of the National University of Singapore. He served in the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004. He was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry from 1993 to 1998 and he also served twice as Singapore's Ambassador to the UN.

Prof Mahbubani has published and spoken in all corners of the globe and is the author of "Can Asians Think?", "Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World", and "The New Asian Hemisphere: the irresistible shift of global power to the East" which was published in New York in February 2008. He graduated in philosophy from Singapore and Canada and served as a Fellow of the Center for International Affairs in Harvard University from 1991 to 1992. The Foreign Policy Association Medal was awarded to him in New York in June 2004 with the following opening words in the citation: "A gifted diplomat, a student of history and philosophy, a provocative writer and an intuitive thinker". He was also listed as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines in September 2005.

John Rink is Professor of Musical Performance Studies at the University of Cambridge. He studied at Princeton University, King's College London, and the University of Cambridge, where his doctoral research was on the evolution of tonal structure in Chopin's early music and its relation to improvisation. He also holds the Concert Recital Diploma and Premier Prix in piano from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He specializes in the fields of performance studies, theory and analysis, and nineteenth-century studies, and has produced numerous books for Cambridge University Press, including The Practice of Performance (1995), Chopin: The Piano Concertos (1997), Musical Performance (2002), and Annotated Catalogue of Chopin's First Editions (with Christophe Grabowski; forthcoming 2010). He is also a co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music, due to be published in November 2009.

John Rink directs the £2.1 million AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (www.cmpcp.ac.uk), which is based at the University of Cambridge in partnership with King's College London, the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London, and in association with the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He is one of three Series Editors of The Complete Chopin -

 A New Critical Edition, and directs two other research initiatives: Chopin's First Editions Online (www.cfeo.org.uk) and Online Chopin Variorum Edition (www.ocve.org.uk). He was an Associate Director of the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM), and he currently chairs the Steering Committees of the AHRC's 'Beyond Text' and 'Landscape and Environment' Strategic Programmes, in addition to serving on the AHRC's Advisory Board.

Baroque cellist Elisabeth Le Guin has been praised for the vigor and sensitivity of her ensemble playing. She is a founding member of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Artaria String Quartet, cellist of Trio Galatea, and appears in numerous recordings, on labels such as Virgin, Koch, Harmonia Mundi and Klara.

Ms Le Guin is currently a professor of historical musicology at UCLA. Her academic interests are eclectic, but connected by an over-arching interest in music as an embodied practice. Her book Boccherini's Body: an Essay in Carnal Musicology appeared in January 2006, published by the University of California Press. Recent research has focused on music and culture in 17th- and 18th-century Spain, and she publishes actively in both Spanish and English.

Professor Le Guin continues to record and concertize as her teaching schedule permits; at present she is cellist and artistic advisor to Foundling Baroque Orchestra, based in Providence, Rhode Island, a group that doubles as a women's and children's social advocacy organization.

Stephen Emmerson studied piano with Pamela Page at University of Queensland. In 1980 he won the Commonwealth final of the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Instrumental and Vocal Competition . In the following year, he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at New College, Oxford graduating with a Master of Philosophy in Music in 1983 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1989. While in England he studied piano with Peter Wallfisch, receiving an ARCM in performance in 1986. He has been on staff at the Queensland Conservatorium since 1987 where he teaches courses in music literature and music research as well as piano, chamber music and performance practice.

He performs regularly both as soloist and with chamber ensembles, most notably within the Griffith Trio, an Ensemble in Residence at the Queensland Conservatorium, Dean–Emmerson–Dean and the Endeavour Trio. Recordings of his playing have been released by ABC Classics, Move Records, The Anthology of Australian Music on Disc, CPO, Continuum, Tall Poppies and Contact. He is also a member

of the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre and convenes the Doctor of Musical Arts program, a professional doctorate promoting the documentation of practice-based research.

Dr. Helena Gaunt is the Assistant Principal (Research and Academic Development) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. She is a professional oboist, has been a member of the Britten Sinfonia and Garsington Opera, and has worked for example, with the orchestra of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Composers’ Ensemble. She completed her PhD at the Institute of Education, London University, in 2006, supervised by Professor Susan Hallam. Her current research focuses on one-to-one tuition in conservatoires and the use of improvisation (verbal and musical) in developing artistry, and on the motivation and aspiration of students in conservatoires. In addition she chairs the Research group of the Polifonia project for the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC), and the Innovative Conservatoire (ICON) group. She lives in London and has five children.

Aiyun Huang won both the First Prize and the Audience Award at the 2002 Geneva International Music Competition. She has commissioned and championed over 100 works in the last decade working with composers from the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Besides working with composers and performing new music, she is a researcher at CIRMMT. Her current research include a three-year DVD recording program titled "Save Percussion Theatre: Documentation from Performer's Perspective" funded through FQRSC as well as "Expanded Musical Practice Interdisciplinary Approaches to Live Electronics in Composition, Performance and Technology" through SSCHRC.

Aiyun was born in Kaohsiung, a city in the southern part of Taiwan. She left Taiwan when she was seventeen to pursue her love for music. Aiyun holds DMA degree from the University of California, San Diego. Between 2004 and 2006, she was a Faculty Fellow at UCSD. Currently, she is Assistant Professor and the Chair of the Percussion Area at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Violinist and recording artist Qian Zhou is Head of Strings and Assistant Professor of Violin at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. Since winning the First Grand Prize and all the five major prizes at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris in 1987, Qian Zhou has been in the first rank of world-class violinists of her generation. Qian Zhou has recorded seven CDs with the Naxos and Marco Polo labels. She has also appeared in two documentaries, one of which is Isaac Stern's Oscar-winning From Mao to Mozart.

She is a frequent recitalist and soloist. Past engagements include concerts with the Baltimore Symphony, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, National Orchestra of Ile de France, Rome Symphony Orchestra, Spanish National Orchestra, Russian Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Osaka Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Beijing Central Philharmonic and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of recitals include performances at the Kennedy Centre, Carnegie Hall, Vienna Concert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Qian Zhou has recorded seven CDs and has also appeared in two documentaries.

Qian Zhou's performances have won acclaim from international music critics. A review in the Washington Post drew praise: ".despite her delicate appearance, she can become a music powerhouse. She met the demands of Weiniawski's Polonaise Brillante with precision and steely strength. In Tchaikovsky's Serenade Melancolique she revealed her expressive talents, creating fluid phrases and a delicate, at times almost weeping, vibrato."

Born in Shanghai, the virtuoso Cellist, Li-Wei moved to Australia at the age of 13, before accepting a scholarship to study with Ralph Kirshbaum at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1995. During his studies Li-Wei won numerous prizes including the First Prize in the Adam International Cello Competition and a special Distinction in the Rostropovich International Cello Competition. In 2002, Li-Wei received the Young Australian of the Year Award. In 2003, Li-Wei made his critically acclaimed BBC Proms debut with the Ulster Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, London. The concert was broadcasted on the BBC network.

Qin Li-Wei has enjoyed successful collaborations with Marek Janowski and the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Osaka Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, Norrkopings Symfoniorchester, Santa Fe Symphony and with conductors such as Vassily Sinaisky, Carlo Rizzi, Marcello Viotti and the late Lord Menuhin.

In recital and chamber music, Li-Wei is a regular guest at the Wigmore Hall and recently made highly successful debuts at New York's Lincoln Centre and in San Francisco and Washington. He appears at the Proms Festival, the Rheinghau, the City of London and the Mecklenburg Festivals and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and NDR. Qin Li-Wei records for Decca, EMI Classics (Asia), ABC Classics and Channel Classics.