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Born in Brunei of Chinese parents, Anne Ku spent most of her childhood on an American air base in Okinawa, Japan. Two years after taking piano lessons, her sightreading ability landed her first stint as contract pianist at age 10, accompanist for school choir at 14, accompanist for adult choral society and church youth choirs at 16. By then, she was completely immersed in music, with 20 private piano students, 5 weekly church services as chief organist, and regular engagements as wedding pianist.
Anne won a full-scholarship including the A.B. Duke Scholarship to Duke University where she studied piano under Randall Love while double majoring in electrical engineering and mathematics. Supported by several scholarships, Anne took summer courses in economics and psychology at Cornell, history at New College Oxford, and her junior year abroad at McGill University. The A.J. Fletcher Music Performance Scholarship supported her senior year piano recital of French impressionist works.
Anne graduated magna cum laude from Duke and a year later obtained a M.Sc. in Operations Research with distinction from London School of Economics. She has worked in the financial, energy, and publishing sectors in Asia, Europe, and the USA. Her doctoral thesis on flexibility and uncertainty at London Business School led her to pursue a diversified portfolio career as a freelance writer/editor, university lecturer, pianist, and concert producer (founder of analyticalQ concert series in London and co-founder of Monument House Concert Series in the Netherlands). She has been twice-invited to give her practical career workshops for musicians at the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival in Italy.
In March 2001, the late composer/pianist Robert Avalon invited Anne to participate in an improvisation ensemble for classical musicians organised by Dutch guitarist Robert Bekkers. Not long after their meeting in Amsterdam, they formed their piano guitar duo, probably the only purely acoustic duo performing on contemporary instruments.
Anne obtained her Bachelor of Music with Honours degree in composition with a teaching diploma in piano in 2008 from the Utrecht Conservatory, the oldest of eleven in the country. Her second chamber opera "Culture Shock!" was premiered in her final exam concert in Utrecht in June 2008. Her ensemble work “All Tuned Out” was selected by Dutch Radio Four for broadcast in Spring 2007. Her works have been performed in the Netherlands, London, Slovakia, Cortona, and Honolulu.
Anne's official website at http://www.anneku.com lists her published articles and premiered compositions as well as her events calendar, which spans the active music scene in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
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