UBC president Santa Ono will welcome pianist Jon Kimura Parker and cellist Desmond Hoebig to the Chan Centre
UBC president and vice-chancellor Santa Ono has gained considerable fame as a university administrator.
He's well-known in scientific circles for his trailblazing research into eye inflammation and age-related macular degeneration.
Plenty of people also realize that he's been a vocal advocate for students' mental health and gender equality on postsecondary campuses.
But there's another side to Ono that many Vancouver residents may not be aware of. And that's his love of music.
His eclectic tastes range from Sergei Rachmaninoff to Rihanna, and from the Moody Blues to Johann Sebastian Bach.
On Tuesday (November 12), Ono will host an installment of the President's Concert Series, which celebrates music by local and international performers.
Beginning at 6:30 p.m., pianist Jon Kimura Parker and cellist Desmond Hoebig will be at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.
It will be an evening of classical music featuring the works of Bach, Igor Stravinsky, Johannes Brahms, and Frédéric Chopin.
The Vancouver-born Parker has played Carnegie Hall in New York over the past two seasons and has been a guest soloist at the Kennedy Center.
He's well known for hosting the series Whole Notes on Bravo! and Up and Coming on CBC Radio.
In addition to that, Parker, like Hoebig, is a professor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
Hoebig was born and raised in Vancouver and played with the Orford String Quartet when it won a Juno Award.
Hoebig won't be the only cellist in the house, however.
Here's a fun fact about Ono: he's a talented cellist who studied at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore.
Ono's older brother Moromo is a pianist and a professor of music in Omaha, Nebraska. And Ono's father was a pianist, in addition to being a mathematician.
So if Ono decides to pull out his cello on Tuesday, it shouldn't come as a total surprise.
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