Prof. Dr. med. Werner Audretsch

“Medicine is a bit like Formula 1: You have to make sure to start in the best team”

Instead of retirement: Professor Werner Audretsch, age 70, started a new venture to fight breast cancer. The internationally renowned surgeon and éminence grise founded an interdisciplinary center for breast cancer – Verein zur Förderung der Senologie.

After 40 years in the operating theater, he started a counselling center for patients: “Zebra”. An independent organization to provide concerned women with invaluable support to deal with all disease-related issues. “Zebra” provides information and advice, and a platform for experiences to be shared, for mental as well as emotional support. Dr. Audretsch, the optimist, is convinced:“Breast cancer can be cured.” The team at Zebra is made up entirely of women – and they are quite clearly the trailblazers in this area. 

Photo: source office Dr. Audretsch

Robert Wilson

“An artist recreates history, not like a historian, but as a poet.”

Since the late 1960s, Robert Wilson’s productions have decisively shaped the face of theater and opera alike. With his signature use of light, his exploration of the structure of a simple movement, and the classical rigor of his scenic and furniture design, Wilson has continuously articulated the force and originality of his vision. Wilson’s close ties and collaborations with leading artists, writers, and musicians continue to fascinate audiences worldwide.

After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson founded the New York‐based performance collective “The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds” in the mid‐1960s, and developed his first signature works, including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974‐1975). Together with Philip Glass he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976).

Wilson’s artistic collaborators include many writers and musicians such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed and Jessye Norman. He has also left his imprint on masterworks such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande, Brecht/Weill’s Three Penny Opera, Goethe’s Faust, Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables and Homer’s Odyssey.

Wilson has been honored with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. Wilson is the founder and Artistic Director of The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the Arts in Water Mill, New York.

Photo: Lucie Jansch

Andrew Sabin

“Of particular significance is our concern for the earth’s natural resources.”

Andy Sabin, chairman of the successful Sabin Metal Corporation,

does more than simply provide financial support to hundreds of organizations. He is actively engaged with community and environmental programs around the world. He spearheaded the building of a community recreation center in East Hampton, NY. As an extension of his lifelong fascination with reptiles and amphibians and his dedication to environmental education, he founded the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton and he continues to lead nature walks for the institution. Mr. Sabin also participated in an expedition to Papua, New Guinea, that resulted in the discovery of a new species of frog that is named for him: Aphantophryne sabini.

Mr. Sabin has served for several years on the Environmental Law Advisory Boards of Columbia Law School and UCLA School of Law, relationships that began through his role as treasurer of The Evan Frankel Foundation, which made grants of more than $17 million during its 15-year existence. Mr. Sabin is also proud to be a member of the Board of Visitors of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas since 2005.

In 2007, to provide more professional support for his philanthropy and involve his family in charitable giving, he established the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation.

Andy’s passions are his family, the environment, bicycling and fishing.

Photo: Rob Rich

Courtney Ross

„ALL CHILDREN LEARN. YOU JUST HAVE TO
INVEST IN THEM.“

Courtney is an attractive woman with the well-styled blond mane of a New York benefactress. She has great resolve and has graciously used her wealth to bring opportunity and education to the masses, regardless of the challenges she has confronted along the way. Her dear motto: Know Thyself In Order To Serve.

In 1991, Courtney and Steven J. Ross founded the Ross School in East Hampton. They recognized that preparing students to meet the challenges of an increasingly connected and rapidly changing world requires innovative models to transform education. Starting with only three children, the Ross School currently serves about 420 students.

The children take music, dance and Chinese, and start the day performing either yoga or Tai chi. However, this isn’t a tiny private school, but a charter school in the East Village, and most of its 420 students are black or Hispanic and come from poor families.

Photo: Ryan McCune/PatrickMcMullan.com

Dr. David Adams

„I BELIEVE MY GREATEST STRENGTH IS THE EXPERT TEAM OF VALVULAR SPECIALISTS I ASSEMBLED…”

Dr. David Adams is a cardiac surgeon who graduated from Duke University in 1983. To date, he has performed approximately 6,000 cardiac surgeries, of which 4,000 involved heart valve procedures. He is Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai where he and his team created the Mitral Valve Repair Reference Center to handle operations with a complex valve or etiology. With a 99% repair rate for mitral valve disease they have set a national benchmark.

Outside the operating room, his personal focus is on research and training surgeons. He is the author of over 200 publications and holds three patents. In 2009, he founded the Mitral Foundation, a non-profit organization which educates patients and cardiologists about mitral valve repair vs. replacement, provides training for surgeons, performs medical missions in developing countries, and supports the development of mitral valve repair reference centers. The Mitral Foundation Center, a cornerstone of the Mitral Foundation, was made possible by funding from the JAF Foundation in 2012.

Photo: source AATS 2019