Very excited to share that Lisa and I will be in Europe this May! It’s been quite a while since we crossed “the pond” and we’re really looking forward to the sights, sounds, and experiences that await us.

Here are the highlights of what we have to look forward to…

The European premiere of my string quartet, The Thailand HRDs, will take place at La Monnaie Opera House in Brussels. It will be performed by the Tana Quartet and the commissioner of the composition, Protection International, will host the event. It’s going to be wonderful to finally meet in person the dedicated staff at PI that we have worked so closely with these past number of years on the #music4HRDs campaign.

I have been invited to speak at the Classical:NEXT conference in Rotterdam. I’ll be talking about artivism. It’s the first time I’m attending such a large gathering of movers and shakers from the world of classical music. Very much looking forward to meeting new people and seeing what new collaborations might come about.

I really appreciate the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council that’s helping me get to Classical:NEXT and the Brussels performance.

The end of our trip will be spent in southern Portugal at another conference. This intense event features influencers from various walks of life gathering to focus on well-being, and personal and world betterment. I’ve never attended such an event before (a bit nervous to be quite honest). But I’m also looking forward to pushing my boundaries and getting inspired, so this seems like the perfect and possibly once-in-a-lifetime type of thing to do.

We’ll also make time to visit family in Amsterdam – one of my favourite cities in the world! We have tentative plans to also go to Paris (Lisa and I have never been to the city of love:)) and maybe even London. Hopefully, those plans get confirmed in the next few weeks.

I feel so fortunate that all of these opportunities have come together in this timespan. Can’t wait!!

Tana Quartet