Speaking on July  30, 2026

Suzie Collier FRAM is an internationally renowned conductor, violinist, and teacher, celebrated for her exceptional musical artistry and ability to inspire musicians and audiences alike. Her recent conducting appearances include directing the Nashville and Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestras, Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Philly Pops, and the Britten Sinfonia, in collaboration with special guests such as Jacob Collier, Chris Thile and Take 6. She conducted recording sessions for Jacob Collier’s Grammy-nominated Djesse Vol. 4 album with the Metropole Orkest and for Stormzy’s orchestral version of Firebabe at London’s iconic Abbey Road Studios.

As a violinist, Suzie has made guest appearances on Jacob Collier’s shows at the O2, Sydney Opera House, Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Royal Albert Hall, to name but a
few. Through her creative platform Suzie Explores, she hosts immersive retreats for musicians and creatives, and was recently a featured guest at Jacob Collier’s Hideaway Retreat.

She regularly gives masterclasses at leading institutions including the University of Michigan, Berklee Valencia, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal Academy of Music, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Musicians Institute. Suzie also
hosts the Suzie Explores podcast, in which she has conversations with world-class musicians about music and life, including the late Quincy Jones, Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Nicola Benedetti, TwoSet and Steve Vai.

In recognition of her outstanding contributions to the music profession, Suzie has been made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.

Huib Schippers is Distinguished Changjiang Professor and Director of the International Centre for Cultural Sustainability at Zhaoqing University in Guangdong Province, China.

He is one of the world’s leading scholars on the crossroads of music education, community music, music industry, cultural diversity, and sustainability.

In over three decades of leadership roles in arts and academia, he founded the World Music School in Amsterdam (1990-1996) and played a key role in realising the World Music & Dance Centre in Rotterdam (2001-2006). He was Founding Director of the innovative Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre in Australia (2003-2015) before moving to Washington DC as Director/Curator of the iconic label Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (2016-2020). 

In 2022, he was UC Regents’ Professor at UCLA, and in 2023 Visiting Professor at Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. 

Among over 200 publications from his hand for scholarly and general audiences, most noteworthy are Facing the music: Shaping music education from a global perspective (Oxford University Press 2010); Sustainable futures for music cultures: An ecological perspective (OUP, 2016) and Music, Communities, Sustainability: Developing policies and practices (OUP, 2022).  

Dr. Peretz is a professor of Psychology at the University of Montreal. Dr Peretz’s leadership has been recognized through an endowed Casavant research chair (2004) and a Canada research chair (2007) in neurocognition of music. Both chairs are the first ever dedicated to the field of neuroscience of music worldwide.  In 2005, she co-founded the International Laboratory for Brain Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), which she directed until June 2018. BRAMS is a unique multi-university consortium that is jointly affiliated to Université de Montréal and McGill University (www.brams.org).  

Dr. Peretz has been awarded several prizes. She is a Member of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Order of Quebec, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, of the American Psychological Association, and now an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.  

Her research focuses on the musical potential of ordinary people, its neural correlates, its heritability and its specificity relative to language. She is renowned on the biological foundations of music.  

With her team, Dr Peretz has provided evidence that music is an autonomous and complex system, associated with dedicated brain networks that are made up of multiple modules. In addition to her work on music specificity, Dr. Peretz has provided solid evidence on a variety of topics. In particular, she is one of the few experts who showed that everyday singing is as natural as speaking. Currently, she pursues research on singing in both Montreal, Toronto and Melbourne (Australia) because singing is the most widespread musical activity that holds the potential to be a cost-effective source of social and health capital for persons across all ages and of all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.