In 1987, Jacqueline Dougherty attended the first World Symposium on Choral Music in Vienna, Austria. While there, she met Dennis Hunt, the Director of Music and Education at Friendship Ambassadors Foundation (FAF). One year later, when she was enrolled in the doctoral conducting program at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), she received a call from Dennis.A week later, she flew to Upper Montclair, New Jersey and was hired to work at FAF. She decided to take a one-year leave from her teaching job in Oregon and from her conducting program at CCM, while also subletting her apartment in Ashland, Oregon. With her beloved cat, Nicholas, her guitar and two suitcases, she boarded a plane and embarked on a life of bold adventure - setting up performance tours in the Eastern Bloc before, during and after the fall of Communism.