A fascination with different ethnicities and worlds of sound has accompanied Salah Ammo since the very beginning. And thanks to a new master’s degree programme at the mdw, this passionate Kurdish Syrian musician has been able to realise a long-held dream: to engage with the broad field of ethnomusicology as a researcher.

Art and science are two areas that have fascinated Haruki Noda ever since his childhood years, which included a huge dose of the natural sciences and an early musical start in the form of guitar lessons. It’s precisely this duality that one can so keenly sense in his present-day work as a composer, multimedia and performance artist, and musicologist.

Last November witnessed the release of Interploitation, this busy artist’s third solo album. Situated entirely within the cosmos of electronic sound, it bears witness to a radical step by an exceptional cellist.

This mdw alumnus launched his pianistic career at age seven. It was as a teenager that he began noticing initial difficulties with the motor function of his left hand—and at age 32, he was ultimately diagnosed with a disorder known as “focal dystonia”.

Community Outreach was one of the main ideas behind this dedicated conductor’s return to Asia after graduating from the mdw. He now works with formations including the Macao Youth Symphony Orchestra, offers various kinds of training, and designs educational programmes for the musical youth of his home country.

A health-related setback towards the conclusion of his studies transformed the life of this full-blooded musician from the ground up.