Director’s Bio

Rebecca Ji (Executive Director)

Rebecca Ji is a Chinese born American citizen. She is a professional performing musician, internationally respected educator and an expert on China tours and concert performance.

Rebecca earned her degree in music in China in 1970; and, for the next decade, performed professionally as violinist and Chinese Erhu player for the Peking Opera and the Henan Province Orchestra.

In 1979, she began working in education as a high school music director and as a performance organizer in Nanjing. Meanwhile, she continued her professional career as an Erhu player in Nanjing Chinese Music Ensemble.

In 1989, she moved to the United States where she earned a Master of Education degree at Bethany Seminary.

Throughout the 1990’s, Rebecca gave educational recitals before nearly 2,000 K-12 schools and universities throughout the Midwest, introducing several hundred thousand young people to the music and cultural traditions of China.

As an accomplished Erhu soloist, she has performed eighteen concerts with Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and three concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Rebecca earned the Illinois Art Council Apprenticeship Award in 1996, 1997 and 1998; and, in 1999, she won the coveted Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award.

Beginning in 1999, Rebecca was perhaps the first to organize tours for quality American High School and University bands and orchestras to perform in China. Her groups have played at virtually all China’s most prestigious venues and cultural events, including the China Plum Bloom Festival, China International Music Festival and the Olympic International Youth Festival. She brought two of America’s finest marching bands to China to represent the USA in 2008 Olympic Festival.

Through her solid performance background in China, Rebecca has established an extensive network of high-level performing arts contacts in the government, the private sector and major venues throughout the country. Many of her fellow performers are now in performance management or in cultural administration.

Jennifer Chan (Program Director)

Born and raised in China, Jennifer came to America when she was 8 years old. Her upbringing in both cultures provided her with fluency in both Mandarin Chinese and English. Through out her school career she excelled in the performing arts, singing in her middle school and high school choir, and also playing the violin in the Orchestra. In High School she also taught herself several Chinese traditional dances, through trial and error and with the help of professional dancers she perfected her art and performed those dances on varies occasions around Chicago land areas, such as: The annual Milwaukee Cultural Festival, Evanston Cultural Festival, Skokie Cultural Festival, Chinese New Year Celebration, & for non-profit fundraising events. The Chinese traditional dances even won her an Illinois Arts Council Apprenticeship award. In college Jennifer majored in education, and after graduating taught math and Chinese language. In the years that she was a teacher she realized the time and effort teachers put into their students and appreciated what they do, and with that appreciation she came to CACBC to take school performance tours to China. She has worked from time to time for CACBC assisting on tours; one occasion was for the televised Olympic Festivals in 2008, where 2 large American Marching bands marched on The Great Wall of China with Marching Bands all over the world. Aside from assisting with performance tours, It is with a great appreciation for teachers that she continues organizing tours for educators, and retired educators.

“To understand what a teacher need you have to be a teacher, and only being an educator can you understand the struggles they go through.”