Grand Rapids Symphony

Larry Herzberg has been a full time violinist with the Grand Rapids Symphony since 1980. Each year he performs around 130 concerts. Before he came to Michigan, Larry was the Assistant Concertmaster of the Nashville (Tennessee) Symphony. During his time in Nashville, he also played violin in the Nashville studios for many popular recordings, accompanying singers such as Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Kenny Rogers, the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, and, yes, even Elvis!

In addition to his work with the Symphony, Larry is also a professor of Asian Languages at Calvin College. He spent thirteen years at four universities studying many different foreign languages intensively, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, and, most importantly, Chinese and Japanese. His love of literature led to a B.A. in English from Lawrence University (Appleton, Wisconsin). He began his study of the Chinese language at Vanderbilt University, where he studied Chinese intensively for five years. His Master's and Ph.D. work in Chinese were done at Indiana University.

In 1980, Larry began the Chinese language program at Albion College and taught Chinese there until 1984. Since 1984 he has been a professor at Calvin College. Here he has taught first through fourth year Japanese and Chinese language courses, as well as numerous courses on Chinese and Japanese culture and society.

Larry's wife, Qin Xue, is Chinese and a graduate of one of China's leading universities, Beijing Normal University, where she majored in Chinese literature. She and Larry met while she was doing graduate work in English literature at Calvin College. Qin works as a free-lance writer and journalist. She writes regular columns for several of China's most popular magazines, including Marriage and the Family and China Educator's Journal. She has also published articles in America's leading Chinese newspaper, The World Journal.

Larry and Qin have published a book with travel advice for China entitled "China Survival Guide: How to Avoid Travel Troubles and Mortifying Mishaps" (Stonebridge Press, 2007). It's the first-ever guidebook that deals with the daily, nitty-gritty hurdles a tourist faces when traveling around China, done with a lot of humor as well as invaluable travel tips.  Larry and Qin have also produced a 60-minute documentary film on China called "China Today: Issues that Trouble Americans", which will be available for schools at all levels as well as church groups when it is released in 2008 and distributed by the Calvin Video Network.