Josephin Mosch Joins LA Opus as European Contributor

Photo: Josephin Mosch

ANNOUNCEMENT

LA Opus Publisher
RODNEY PUNT

Dear Readers:

It is with great pleasure that we introduce to you the youngest contributor to LA Opus, Josephin Mosch, whose varied professional activities are shared between three major areas of interest: medicine, music and media.

We became acquainted with Josephin when last year LA Opus reviewed the Heidelberg Spring Festival in Germany, where she had a role in the support of its artists and concerts. Josephin has been active musically as a violinist in orchestras like the Collegium Musicum in Heidelberg and the Orchestre des Universités de Paris, and sung in choral ensembles like the Harvard University Choir. Currently pursuing a degree in medicine, she has reported on music and science for journals and on radio, and is currently working for the Bavarian broadcasting company (a part of the German TV and Radio --ARD).

Now in her final year of medical studies at Heidelberg University's Medical School, Josephin had earlier pursued studies in Paris at the Université Paris Diderot, and is doing doctoral thesis work in cardiovascular research at the Harvard Medical School's Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She was recently awarded support by the Global Health Journalism Grant Program of the European Journalism Centre and will soon report about progress on the eradication of measles in various countries as well as new achievements in medicine and science.

The mention of journalism takes us to Josephin's main area of interest to our readers. From her current European perspective, she will contribute music reviews and commentary on activities in her native Germany as well as nearby countries for LA Opus.

The connection between music and the medical professions has much historical precedent. Russian composer Alexander Borodin was by day a chemist at the city of St. Petersburg's Medical–Surgical Academy, where he also founded the School of Medicine for Women. And by evening he was the composer of some of the loveliest melodies of the Romantic era. Another, less successful story, was that of Hector Berlioz, whose brief tenure as a medical student had him fleeing in horror from the live dissection of a cadaver, as he so theatrically related in his memoirs.

Our local readers may know of the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra, one of the oldest community orchestras in the United States. Its ranks include doctors, dentists, veterinarians, nurses, and allied health care professionals. No doubt they will be interested in the intersections Josephin uncovers between the fields of music and medicine.

Josephin's two earlier articles on LA Opus can be accessed by clicking her name at the scroll of authors on the upper right side of the blog. We are delighted to welcome Josephin Mosch to the roster of LA Opus contributors.