The Ying Quartet occupies a position of unique prominence in the classical music world, combining brilliantly communicative performances with a fearlessly imaginative view of chamber music in today's world. Now in its second decade as a quartet, the Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of the highest musical qualifications in its tours across the United States and abroad. Their performances regularly take place in many of the world's most important concert halls, from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House.

At the same time, the Quartet's belief that concert music can also be a meaningful part of everyday life has also drawn the foursome to perform in settings as diverse as the workplace, schools, juvenile prisons, and the White House. In fact, the Ying Quartet's constant quest to explore the creative possibilities of the string quartet has led it to an unusually diverse array of musical projects and interests.

http://www.ying4.com/index.html

Ed Sanders is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author, publisher and longtime member of the band The Fugs. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations.

Sanders wrote his first notable poem, "Poem from Jail", on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting the launch of nuclear submarines armed with nuclear missiles in 1961. In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal Fuck You. Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore at 383 East Tenth Street in what was then the Lower East Side; the store became a gathering place for bohemians, writers and radicals. On January 1, 1966, police raided Peace Eye Bookstoreand charged Sanders with obscenity, charges he fended off with the aid of the ACLU. Notoriety generated by the case led to his appearance on the February 17, 1967 cover of Life Magazine, which proclaimed him "a leader of New York's Other Culture."

In late 1964, Sanders founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984. On October 21, 1967, Sanders helped The Fugs and the San Francisco Diggers in an attempt to exorcise the Pentagon. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He attended the Manson group's murder trial, and spent time at their residence at the Spahn Movie Ranch. There have been two updated editions of The Family, the most recent in 2002. The Process Church of the Final Judgement sued Sanders's U.S. publisher for defamation over a chapter linking them with Manson's activities. The case was settled by the publisher, who removed the disputed chapter from future editions. The Process Church then sued Sanders's British publisher, but lost the suit and were forced to pay the defendant's legal fees.

Sanders is the founder of the Investigative Poetry movement. His 1976 manifesto Investigative Poetry, published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books, had an impact on investigative writing and poetry during the ensuing decades. In the 1990s, Sanders began utilizing the principles of Investigative Poetry to create a series of book-length poems on literary figures and American History. Among these works are Chekhov, 1968: A History in Verse, and The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg. In 1998, Sanders began work on a 9-volume America, A History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th century, were published in a CD format with over 2,000 pages in length.

Sanders received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry in 1983, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry in 1987. His Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, Selected Poems 1961-1985 won an American Book Award in 1988. He was chosen to deliver the Charles Olson Memorial Lectures at SUNY Buffalo in 1983. In 1997, he received a Writers Community residency sponsored by the YMCA National Writer’s Voice through the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund.

In 1997 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In 2000 and 2003 he was Writer-in-Residence at the New York State Writers Institute in Albany, New York.

Born in Shanghai, pianist Jue Wang has been concertizing regularly in his native country since the age of ten. Recent First Prize and Gold Medal winner of the XVth Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition, Mr. Wang is rapidly garnering attention as a gifted young performer who has already made successful debuts at many prestigious venues around the globe.

As winner of the Santander Competition, Mr. Wang receives a generous cash prize, a recording distributed by Naxos and an extensive concert and recital tours with more than 100 performances offered through the competition. Highlights include debuts at New York's Carnegie Hall and London's Wigmore Hall. Additional recitals are scheduled for Hannover NDR Hall in Germany, Bilbao Sociedad Filarmónica, Zaragoza Auditorio de Congresos in Spain, Salle Gaveau in Paris, Warsaw's Penderecki and Santander's International Festivals, as well as venues in Switzerland, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Panama and Mexico. Mr. Wang is slated for concerto performances with the Oviedo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and the Spanish Radio and Television, Murcia Regional, Colombia National and National Dominican Republic Symphony Orchestras.

During the 2008-2009 season, Jue Wang presented his Madrid debut recital at the Auditorio Nacional de Música and his Valencia concert debut at the Palau des Arts, performing with the Palau des Arts Orchestra and Maestro Zubin Mehta. He gave recitals at the Úbeda International Festival, Santander Palacio de Festivales, Klavierfestival Ruhr in Germany, Sintra International Festival in Portugal, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, the Córdoba Rafael Orozco International Piano Festival and performed the inaugural concerts at the Badajoz Festival Ibérico and at the Oviedo International Piano Festial "Luis G. Iberni". Critics have praised his "self-confidence and concentration on the stage...his confidence and maturity are evident during his performances" (Diario Córdoba) and have highlighted his "Virtuoso abilities, [he] read with unusual clarity and brilliance" (Heraldo de Aragón).

In addition to the Santander prize, Mr. Wang also received First Prize at the 51st International Piano Competition María Canals in Barcelona. Mr. Wang received a Masters Degree in 2009 from the Shanghai Conservatory. He is currently studying at the Manhattan School of Music with Dr. Marc Silverman in the Artist Diploma Program.

Digby is the pseudonym of liberal political blogger Heather Parton who founded the blog Hullabaloo. She has been called one of the "leading and most admired commentators" of the progressive blogosphere.

Digby began as a commenter on the blogs of Bartcop and Atrios and launched her own blog on January 1, 2003, calling it Hullabaloo "because one function of blogs is to cause a ruckus" and decorating it with a picture of a screaming Howard Beale from the film Network. She has been joined by other bloggers on Hullabaloo, including composer Richard Einhorn, who blogs under the name "Tristero".

Digby was a Navy brat who graduated from Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, Alaska. She studied theater at San Jose State College and worked on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and for a number of film companies, including Island Pictures, Polygram, and Artisan Entertainment.

Digby won the 2005 Koufax award for blog writing and accepted the Paul Wellstone Award on behalf of the progressive blogosphere from the Campaign for America's Future at their "Take Back America" conference. Digby had initially kept her identity secret and it was widely assumed that Digby was male until she made an appearance at the 2007 Campaign for America's Future conference to accept the award.