Performers

Respected violist and sought-after chamber musician Mark Ludwig has been closely associated with the Czech Republic for more than twenty years. As a Fulbright scholar he focused his attention on Entartete Musik (degenerate music), with particular emphasis on Czech composers who died in Terezín. A founding member of the Hawthorne String Quartet, he brought the ensemble to the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) in 1991 and, on the invitation of President Václav Havel, they performed in Terezín and Prague during the ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the first transport to Terezín and the opening of the Ghetto Museum in Terezín. Mark Ludwig is also the founding director of the Terezín Chamber Music Foundation which, among others, sponsors the commission of new chamber works via its annual Terezín Legacy Commission; this award also includes the opportunity to premiere the work at the Prague Spring. Mark Ludwig is actively involved in socio-cultural projects which support humanitarian endeavours, with particular emphasis on issues of intolerance. He has participated in cultural events in support of Bosnia, Rwanda, Dafur and Tibet and, in 2010, he gave a solo performance for the Dalai Lama at the United States Capitol during a ceremony which awarded His Holiness the Lantos Foundation Human Rights Prize.