“Shirley Young, a Chinese-American businesswoman who broke barriers in the corporate world before starting a second career as a cultural diplomat, using classical music to bridge the ever-widening divisions between China and the United States, died on Dec. 26,” writes Clay Risen in Sunday’s (1/3) New York Times. “She was 85. The cause was complications of breast cancer, said David Hsieh, one of her sons. Ms. Young rose to prominence as an executive with Grey Advertising…. In 1988 [she became General Motors’] vice president for consumer market development. Almost immediately, she pushed her new employer to invest in China…. In the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, in 1989, Ms. Young joined other prominent Chinese-Americans, including Yo-Yo Ma and I.M. Pei, to create the Committee of 100, a group dedicated to shaping trans-Pacific dialogue…. She became an important force behind the expansion of Western classical music in China and a patron of Chinese classical musicians trying to make it in the United States…. As a board member at institutions like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, she created exchange programs and arranged tours and concerts.”
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