Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting Indigenous rights internationally.
Riccardo Muti is an Italian conductor. He currently holds two music directorships, at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and at the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini. Muti has previously held posts at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.
Yuri Khatuevich Temirkanov is a Russian conductor of Circassian (Kabardian) origin.
Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Chorus; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and the Institute for Learning, Access, and Training; Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and performance space; Grainger Ballroom, an event space overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Art Institute of Chicago; a public multi-story rotunda; Forte restaurant and café; and administrative offices. In June 1993, plans to significantly renovate and expand Orchestra Hall were approved and the $110 million project resulting in Symphony Center began in 1995 and was completed in 1997.
The German Academic Exchange Service, founded in 1925, is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation.
The Queen Elisabeth Competition is an international competition for career-starting musicians held in Brussels. The competition is named after Queen Elisabeth of Belgium (1876–1965). It is a competition for classical violinists, pianists, singers and cellists. It also used to hold international competitions for composers from 1953 to 2012. The current Patron is Queen Mathilde of Belgium.
The Nobel Peace Prize Concert has been held annually since 1994 on 11 December, to honour the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The award ceremony on 10 December takes place in Oslo City Hall, while the concert has been held at Oslo Spektrum, with the attendance of the laureate and other prominent guests. The Concert is broadcast to a global audience and reaches up to 350 million households in 100 countries.
Myung-whun Chung is a South Korean conductor and pianist.
Joseph Calleja is a Maltese operatic tenor.
Herman Makarenko is the conductor of the National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre of Ukraine named after Taras Shevchenko, the chief conductor and artistic director of the Kyiv Classic Orchestra, People's Artist of Ukraine, PhD, Doctor of Arts, Professor, Ambassador of the Ukrainian culture, became the first Ukrainian musician to be awarded the title of UNESCO Artist for Peace, author and initiator of international projects, including those under the auspices of the UN and UNESCO, Head of the Viennese Balls Organizing Committee in Ukraine.
Malek Jandali is a Syrian-American composer and pianist. whose music integrates Middle-Eastern modes and Arabic Maqams into Western structures of classical music.. He is the founder of the nonprofit organization Pianos for Peace, which aims to build peace through music and education. Jandali immigrated to the United States and studied music in North Carolina. Since then, he has performed with orchestras across the world and composed a number of modern classical works. His music was described as "a major new addition to the 21st century symphonic literature" by Fanfare Magazine with "heart-rending melodies, lush orchestration, clever transitions and creative textures", according to American Record Guide. Jandali's music ranges from chamber works to large symphonic compositions integrating Middle-Eastern and Western influences.
Lydia Caruana is a Maltese operatic soprano who performs in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe and her native Malta. She has sung in two rarely performed operas by Maltese composers, Carmelo Pace's I martiri and Nicolo Isouard's Jeannot et Colin.
Elisso Bolkvadze or Eliso Bolkvadze is a Georgian classical pianist born in Tbilisi, Georgia. She is member of Parliament of Georgia since 11 December 2020.
Sharon Azrieli is a soprano singer, and cantor from Montreal, Quebec. Azrieli performs classical, operatic, and musical theatre works, playing parts such as Juliette in Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Mimi in La Bohème and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro. She attended Juilliard and has performed with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) is an international organization established in 2005 by the national parliaments of the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean region. It is the legal successor of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (CSCM), launched in the early ‘90s.
Jae-Yeon Won is a South Korean pianist. He won the second prize and the audience prize at the 61st Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in 2017 and won the first prize at the Karl-Robert-Kreiten Prize, the first prize at the Ferrol International Piano Competition, the first prize at the Dong-A Music Competition . He was a laureate at the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition.
Zaid Jabri is a Syrian-Polish composer, conductor and music educator, who works at the intersection of Western and Middle Eastern musical traditions. He is one of the representatives of the so-called second generation of Syrian composers of the turn of the 20th to the 21st century. This generation also includes Syrian musicians and composers such as Shafi Badreddin, Kareem Roustom, Raad Khalaf, Kinan Azmeh, Hassan Taha and Basilius Alawad and has been characterized as "transforming modern Arab music into a contemporary space for experimentation."
