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Yves Daccord is a renowned humanitarian leader, international strategist, influencer and changemaker. His current focus is on the theme of the impact of Covid-19 on our social contract and the role of cities in the age of digital surveillance and pandemics—the subject of a special initiative at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. From 2010 to March 2020, he served as Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Daccord sits on the Board of several organisations and holds a degree in political science and an honorary doctorate in social sciences from the University of St Gallen.
Before joining Wellcome Trust as its Director, Jeremy Farrar was Director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam. In addition to being listed 12th on Fortune magazine’s 50 World’s Greatest Leaders in 2015, he has also received the Memorial Medal and Ho Chi Minh City Medal from the Government of Vietnam. In 2018 he received the President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian of the Year Award, and was knighted for services to global health the following year. Farrar is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences UK, the National
Academies USA, the European Molecular Biology Organisation and is a Fellow of The Royal Society.
Jan Swafford’s music has been played around the country and abroad by ensembles including the symphonies of St. Louis, Indianapolis, and the Dutch Radio; Boston’s new-music groups Musica Viva, Collage, and Dinosaur Annex; and chamber ensembles including the Peabody Trio, the Chamber Orchestra of Tennessee, and the Scott Chamber Players of Indianapolis.
Over the years his music has evolved steadily, but in all its avatars his work is forthrightly expressive, individual in voice, and steadily concerned with lucidity of texture and form. Beneath the surface there are contributions from world music, especially Indian and Balinese, and from jazz and blues. The titles of his works—including Landscape with Traveler, From the Shadow of the Mountain, and The Silence at Yuma Point—reveal a steady inspiration from nature. The composer views his work as a kind of classicism: a concern with clarity and directness, pieces that seem familiar though they are new, that aspire to sound like they wrote themselves.
Also a well-known writer on music, Swafford is author of biographies of Ives, Brahms, and Beethoven. His journalism appears regularly in Slate. He is a long-time program writer and preconcert lecturer for the Boston Symphony and has written program notes and essays for the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Toronto.
Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 90 countries. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington, DC. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world. He has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses, devoting special attention to issues of international justice, counterterrorism, the foreign policies of the major powers, and the work of the United Nations.
Bruno Mégevand is an attorney at law admitted to the Bar of Geneva. After practising as an associate in the law firm of Me Jean-Philippe Maître from 1983 until 1986, he became an independant lawyer. In 1989, he founded the law firm Megevand & Grosgean which became Notter, Megevand and Grosjean. Since 2002, he is the founding partner of the law firm NOMEA.
A graduate in economics, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has spent a significant part of his career in Latin America with Nestlé. Upon his return to Switzerland, he took on various roles in the strategic, marketing and communication fields before becoming CEO and then Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was a Board Member of several large companies and distinguished himself by receiving various honorary awards. Today Chairman Emeritus of Nestlé, Vice-Chairman of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum and President of the GSDA (Geneva Science & Diplomatic Anticipator), Mr Brabeck-Letmathe also chairs the Foundation Board of the Verbier Festival.
Eduard Wulfson was born in Riga in 1953 and began his study of the violin at the age of six, giving his first concert at The Riga Conservatory at the age of nine. His early teacher, Professor Sturestep, was followed by Professor Waiman at the Conservatory of St Petersburg, and by Professor Bezrodny at the Moscow Conservatory.
In the 1970s, he continued working in Western Europe with Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Henryk Szering and Miriam Solovieff. He is a prize‑winner of the Paganini and Zagreb Competitions and took a “Grand Prix des Beaux Arts” in Munich. He has performed as soloist all over the world, in collaboration with great musicians such as Natalia Gutman, Yuri Bashmet, Yehudi Menuhin, Ida Haendel and Dimitri Yablonsky with whom he has collaborated and recorded (for Naxos) two Rachmaninov Trios. The international media acclaim the incomparable playing of Eduard Wulfson. As described by Maestro Y. Menuhin, “the playing of Eduard Wulfson is in the best Russian tradition”.
Professor Eduard Wulfson has been a leading advisor to prestigious institutions and private clients on the subject of classical for more than thirty years. His company “Rare Musical Instruments Consulting” (Edwulstrad RMIC Ltd) is based in Geneva. He is especially known for advising on the fine stringed-instruments market and finding the best and scarcest instruments. Using his expertise, Professor Wulfson helps his prestigious clients to acquire many wonderful Italian stringed-instruments made by famous makers such as Antonio Stradivari, Guarneri Del Gesu, and Niccolo Amati. In 2008, Maestro V.Gergiev, world-famous conductor of The Mariinsky Theater and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra appointed Professor Wulfson to be his personal advisor in building the most incredible collection of rare stringed-instruments.
For thirty years, Eduard Wulfson has also been known as an eminent professor helping to prepare new generation of the greatest soloists.
Menahem Pressler, founding member and pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, has established himself among the world’s most distinguished and honored musicians, with a career that spans over five decades. Now 90 years old, he continues to captivate audiences throughout the world as performer and pedagogue, performing solo and chamber music recitals to great critical acclaim while maintaining a dedicated and robust teaching career.
Born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1923, Pressler fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Israel. Pressler’s world-renowned career was launched after he was awarded first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946. This was followed by his successful American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Eugene Ormandy. Since then, Pressler’s extensive tours of North America and Europe have included performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris, Brussels, Oslo, and Helsinki, among others.
In 2007 Menahem Pressler was appointed as an Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in recognition of a lifetime of performance and leadership in music. In 2005 Pressler received two additional awards of International merit: the German President’s Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz (Cross of Merit) First Class, Germany’s highest honor, and France’s highest cultural honor, the Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters award.
Pressler has received honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska and the North Carolina School of the Arts, five Grammy nominations, a lifetime achievement award from Gramophone magazine, Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He has also been awarded the German Critics Ehrenurkunde award, and election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. On April 6, 2011, Mr. Pressler has been named the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 International Classical Music Awards. More recently, Gramophone magazine honored Pressler –as part of the Beaux Arts Trio—in their May 2012 issue “Hall of Fame: 50 People Who Changed Classical Music.” In July of 2012, Queen Sofia of Spain presented Pressler with the Yehudi Menuhin Prize for the Integration of Arts and Education.
Internationally active as soloist and chamber musician, additional honors include England’s Record of the Year Award and Ensemble of the Year from Musical America in 1997. In addition to his busy schedule as a performer, he has given master classes in Germany, France, Canada, and Argentina, and continues to serve on the jury of the Van Cliburn, Queen Elisabeth, and Arthur Rubinstein competitions.
The 1955 Berkshire Music Festival saw Menahem Pressler’s debut as a chamber musician, where he appeared as pianist with the Beaux Arts Trio. This collaboration quickly established Pressler’s reputation as one of the world’s most revered chamber musicians. His other chamber music collaborations have included multiple performances with the Juilliard, Emerson, Guarneri and Cleveland Quartets.
In addition to over fifty recordings with the Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler has compiled over thirty solo recordings, ranging from the works of Bach to Ben Haim. Pressler’s life has always been completely devoted to his music. When not touring or giving master classes around the world, Mr. Pressler can be found teaching at Indiana University, where he holds the rank of Distinguished Professor. Pressler lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife Sara.
Award-winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet enjoys an illustrious career, working with orchestras like the Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and BBC Symphony, alongside renowned conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and many others. Highlights of his 2023/24 season include tours with the Philharmonia Orchestra in China, performances of Ravel with the Lähti Symphony, Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Kyoto Symphony, and his residency at Wigmore Hall in a series dedicated to Debussy. Additional engagements feature his recital tours with programs of Debussy, Liszt, and Massenet across venues including Wigmore Hall, Sage Gateshead, and Japan’s Hamamatsu.
Bavouzet’s acclaimed recordings, all with Chandos, include his series of Haydn Piano Sonatas, regarded as the modern benchmark, and “The Beethoven Connection,” both receiving critical praise. His Bartók Piano Concerti recordings with the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda earned the Gramophone Concerto Award in 2014, while his Stravinsky and Ravel concerti won multiple awards. He also champions lesser-known French composers such as Gabriel Pierné and Albéric Magnard.
An ICMA Artist of the Year in 2012, Bavouzet also serves as International Chair in Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music.