About Anne Ku

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Anne Ku

Before 2020 rolls around, I am tidying up my website. Here is the old ABOUT page.

Welcome to my world!

Thank you for checking me out. I use this website mainly to chronicle important documents and events so that I can continue to travel and not rely on a hard disc or a basement to store everything.

New interview with the amazing multi instrumentalist and ukulele teacher Anne Ku by Paul Mansell, classical guitarist, ukulele teacher, and author, based in England – May 2019.

52513916_10156929542221083_2521647270248579072_oMy latest bio:

Born in Brunei and raised in Taiwan and Okinawa, Anne embraced music at a young age, traversing various instruments until she discovered the ukulele on Maui. Since then she has been jamming in ukulele clubs in her travels, giving ukulele lessons and workshops to complete beginners, and writing her forthcoming book for aspiring ukulele players. After earning her music degree in composition and a teaching diploma in piano from Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands, she performed widely as a chamber musician in duos with classical guitar, French horn, and cello. Prior to moving to Boston, she taught world music, music history, music theory, instrumental ensemble, and piano at University of Hawaii Maui College. Since then she has completed her MA in Music, with her dissertation entitled “Paradox of Simplicity: Songsheets for Participative Music Making in Ukulele Groups.”

I built my first website after my boss responded my request to attend a natural gas conference in London with “Do you think anyone wants to talk to you if you didn’t work for us?”  That remark made me rethink who I was and what I wanted to say. I channeled that insatiable urge to express myself into my writing and music.

In addition to self-expression, I also fueled a wanderlust and desire for flexibility, which I attained in my next job as my new boss, a prize-winning journalist and eventual playwright, encouraged me to arrive at the office later than my colleagues, that is, after my morning piano practice. In fact, I titled my first solo piano CD “In Pursuit of Flexibility.”

In short, this site is the culmination of a long journey, from London to the Netherlands,  Maui and Boston. Along the way, I discovered it was easier to use WordPress than Front Page, Dreamweaver, and hand coding in HTML.

Anne Ku, Maui, August 2013.

Ma’alaea, Maui

If you’re curious, please check out the ABOUT ME page. As I continue to reinvent myself through epiphanies, synchronicities, and interesting individuals who intersect or travel with me on this journey, I copy and paste various biographies about me below.

For the Hawaii Strategy Institute conference at Kapiolani Community College in March 2016, I gave a presentation together with my colleagues on cross-disciplinary collaboration. My biography read as follows:

In 2015, Anne Ku taught piano, instrumental ensemble, music theory, music history/literature, music in world cultures, and Mandarin Chinese at UHMC. Between 2011 and 2014, she directed a federally-funded electric vehicle project while teaching developmental math and piano part-time. In 2014 and 2015, she won three consecutive UHCC innovation awards funding her projects: piano ensemble, instrumental ensemble, and What it Takes to Succeed (WiTTS). She holds a Ph.D. from London Business School, M.Sc. London School of Economics, B.S.E. Duke University, and B. Music Utrecht Conservatory.

I moderated a session on music and math at the 2015 Hawaii Strategy Institute (2015) at Leeward Community College on Oahu:

Anne Ku developed the piano ensemble approach to the teaching of sight-reading and collaborative music making which won a UHCC Part-time Student Initiatives Award. Prior to this, she taught developmental math, probability and statistics, and other courses as an adjunct lecturer while working or studying full-time in Maui, the Netherlands, and London. Anne holds degrees in music, operations research, and engineering. Anne is a music lecturer at UH Maui College.

I gave a presentation on teaching music via cable TV at the 2015 Online Conference at UH Manoa:

Anne Ku teaches music at University of Hawaii Maui College, where she was also director of the federally-funded electric vehicle project that led Maui to achieve one of the highest concentrations of EVs per capita. A three-time winner of University of Hawaii Community College innovation grants, Anne continues to look for out-of-the-box solutions to improve student success. She holds a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from London Business School, M.Sc. in Operations Research from London School of Economics, B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from Duke University, and B. Music in Composition and Teaching Diploma in Piano from Utrecht Conservatory.

An even shorter biography appears in the guidebook of the Second Annual University of Hawaii Sustainability Summit (2014).

A photo and short biography appear on the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit (Honolulu, September 2013) speaker list.

The biography on the University of Hawaii’s first sustainability summit (April 2013) has a short blurb focussing on my background and interest in energy.

A short biography appears in the agenda of the Department of Energy Clean Cities EV Readiness Planning Meeting in May 2013:

Anne Ku directs the Maui Electric Vehicle Alliance, the Department of Energy Clean Cities funded EV-readiness project, which has seen the stakeholders multiply ten-fold and its reach extended to the neighboring islands of Kaua’i and the Big Island. The project’s main focus is on developing adequate infrastructure for mass adoption of electric vehicles to reduce reliance on fossil fuel imports and increase EV charging from renewable energy sources. The plan to deliver an electric vehicle paradise to the millions of visitors depends on local residents and businesses to pave the way. After earning her PhD in Decision Science from London Business School, Anne worked in the energy sectors in the USA and Europe. Her multi-contributor book “Risk and Flexibility in Electricity: an introduction to the fundamentals and techniques” is available from Riskbooks.

Anne Ku, Maui, 2013

Haiku, Maui

The biography on the University of Maui College Music Department site  is a condensation of a longer biography on my piano guitar duo website. In summer of 2012, I participated in a many pianists on many pianos concert on Maui. Scroll down to my biography to read about my music background.

In a network society, you find out about someone through networks, but sometimes you’d rather read a biography, a curriculum vitae, or a press release. Sometimes it’s easier to glance at bullet points:

MENTIONED IN THE PRESS

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