After finding out she was pregnant with twins on the first day of her MBA at Birkbeck, Jennifer Chen chose to study the first module before taking a year out. During the Covid pandemic, she was raised her twins in Taiwan where she was disappointed with the experience of early years music. The children were expected to be obedient and not touch any instruments. It was assumed they wouldn’t like classical music.

“So I applied the mantra I’d learned at Birkbeck: if you don’t like something, change it.”

She and her business partner performed their first children’s music class at the National Taichung Theatre, which was a resounding success. That’s when Fugue Children’s Music was born. They have since received interest-free funding from the Ministry of Culture and are expanding their work into other cities.