Now that the boring facts are out on the table …

… let’s talk business. Through her experiences living on three different continents, there is one thing that is constantly preoccupying Cathy’s mind. One that is perhaps obvious but not simple at all: the constant encounter of different cultures. As our world grows smaller with the rapid development of technology, human cultures inevitably come together and are met with confrontations of all sorts. Cultures that come from all different corners of the earth and were developed sometimes independently over hundreds and thousands of years. One could only imagine the joys but also the problems that arise from these encounters.

Having lived each third of her life in China, Canada and Germany, successively, Cathy can only say how positively this has enriched her life so far. She could form her world views enriched and confirmed by different sensations and ways of thinking. This includes hearing music, learning languages, meeting new people and even discovering personal habits. Sometimes a certain minor inflection in the speech could open up a whole world of insights, if only one opens his senses and mind. Why is this important? Because uncovering the external world is like holding a mirror in front of one self.

It has been through music that Cathy made her most personal and life-changing experiences. Music, often dubbed as the universal language, speaks to all of us, but in different ways. Luckily! Or else we wouldn’t have such a rich and diverse array of music styles and within each style, music pieces or songs. The musical legacy is often the pride of a culture. In it the spirit of a culture is fossilized. It is the perfect tool for the modern cultural exchange.

Trained and still being trained with the grammars of this “universal language” since the age of five, Cathy is striving to share these experiences through her music, classical piano music. Unfortunately, through the confrontation of differences there also come conflicts. Even though the modern human tries to be open and advocates adamantly the meeting of new things, we are still inhibited from really accept and live through these things. In other words, see the world through a different pair of eyes. These inhibitions are rooted in our upbringing and acquired knowledge and they feed these conflicts. Complicated conflicts, which could however maybe be healed by our similarities.

Through different music Cathy hopes to find what is common in all of us. After all, music has been created by humans and we, as human beings, share structures that are fundamental. It would be a big step, if she could just discover a little more of what is already there, externally and internally.