gamin
piri | saenghwang | taepyeongso
Gamin is a New York City-based multi-dimensional artist performing across the genres of traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations worldwide. Ralph Samuelson, a senior advisor of Asian Cultural Council, once praised gamin as “a true pioneer and innovator, leading traditional instruments in exciting new directions.” Gamin plays 3 types of Korean winds and is a designated Yisuja (Senior Diplomate), official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Gamin earned her Doctorate in Korean Musical Arts at Seoul National University. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restrictive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence at the Asian Cultural Council, and Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism of the Republic of Korea. Gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musicians Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, Jen Shyu, presenting premieres at Roulette, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. Gamin was a featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. She is selected as artist-in-residence at the HERE Arts Center in 2020. Gamin’s Carnegie Hall début as a featured soloist with the Nangye Gugak Orchestra of Korea, scheduled for March 27, 2020, was postponed by the covid pandemic until a later date.
Jeff Roberts
guqin
Jeff Roberts is a composer and improviser working in interdisciplinary areas of intercultural music making, electroacoustic music and multi-media performance. His music explores relationships between different music styles and cultures. His creative work has been recognized with awards from the Fulbright Foundation, Franz Göethe Stiftung, and Asian Cultural Council among others. His compositions have been commissioned by orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists in Europe and North America and have been performed world-wide. His music has been released on the Telos (Germany) and Takuai (Italy) labels. Initially trained as an improvising guitarist, he has spent the last fifteen years performing on the Chinese plucked string instrument guqin (古琴), developing an intercultural language for improvisation and composition. He collaborates interculturally and co-founded PAN Project Ensemble with piri master Gamin Kang. He studied guqin performance with master Li Xiangting (李祥霆) as a senior scholar at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. He also studied with German composer Hans Zender at the Hochschule für Musik Frankfurt am Main. He holds a B.M. in Improvisation from New England Conservatory of Music, an M.M. in Composition from Boston University and a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory from Brandeis University. He is an Assistant Professor of East Asian Music and Culture in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
Ying-Chieh Wang
erhu
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, erhu maestro WANG Ying-Chieh is currently the Artistic Director of the Yunshuyachi Ensemble. She was the first ever graduate student to receive a Master’s degree in erhu performance from Taiwan’s Chinese Culture University, and previously served as concertmaster of the Taipei Chinese Orchestra. She is currently an assistant professor of Chinese Music at Chinese Culture University and a lecturer on the erhu at National Taiwan University of Arts. She started her solo career in 2012. Using her training in western classical music and Chinese folk music as a base, she has performed modernized traditional music, cutting edge avant-garde, world fusion, improvisational, crossover, and experimental electroacoustic music, among other types. She has actively pursued international art exchanges, has served as resident artist, and has been invited many times to perform as a soloist and with orchestras at domestic and international art festivals. She has performed in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Belgium, China, Japan and Korea. Her first contemporary erhu music album, entitled Arbre Nuage, was co-produced by Yunshuyachi Ensemble and Tout Pour la Musique Contemporaine (TPMC) and released by L’Empreinte Digitale in November, 2017. This album was well reviewed by France’s Le Monde newspaper and nominated for the Best Art Music Album category at Taiwan’s 2018 Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music.
Ned Rothenberg
shakuhachi
Composer/Performer Ned Rothenberg has been internationally acclaimed for both his solo and ensemble music, presented for the past 40 years on 5 continents. He performs primarily on alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and the shakuhachi - an end-blown Japanese bamboo flute. His solo work utilizes an expanded palette of sonic language, creating a kind of personal idiom all its own. In an ensemble setting, he leads the trio Sync, with Jerome Harris, guitars and Samir Chatterjee, tabla, works with the Mivos string quartet playing his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and collaborates around the world with fellow improvisors. Recent recordings include this Quintet, The World of Odd Harmonics, Ryu Nashi (new music for shakuhachi), and Inner Diaspora, all on John Zorn's Tzadik label, as well as Live at Roulette with Evan Parker, and The Fell Clutch, on Rothenberg’s Animul label.
janggu | buk
Woon-Jung Sim
Woonjung Sim, winner of the World Music Award and Experimental Spirit Award of the 21st Century Korean Music Project Competition, is a Korean percussionist recognized for her excellence in traditional, modern and intercultural music performance. She was awarded a 2011 artist-in-residence grant by the Korean government to live and collaborate in New York City. During this time, she presented improvisation concerts at venues such as in Clemente Soto Velez, Vaudeville Park, Downtown Music gallery, and Zebulon. She is the founder of the ensemble ‘Jayna’, which released an album and debuted at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She has also toured with Korean music ensembles performing in cities across the United States, including venues such as the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
She has participated in international music symposiums including the International Symposium "Inheritance of Folk Culture" held at Akita University in Japan, and the International Folk Music Week, Zhangjiajie, china. Woonjung began her formal musical training in Korean traditional percussion at the age of ten alongside studies in piano, flute and guitar. This versatility has supported her in various contexts, from traditional performance to theatre music and modern improvisation. She was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to pursue her Master's degree at Seoul National University.
Korean vocals
Saeyeon Jeong
Sae-yeon Jeong is a vocal performer who specializes in Pansori and is active in many ways, including traditional and creative music. She is currently a DMA. student at Seoul National University's College of Music, and was selected in the Gukak experimental stage’ special soripan' in 2015, the Jeonju World Sound Festival in 2016 and the Seoul Youth Art Troupe in 2017, in recognition of their potential. She recently released the new album ‘Here and Now’ with her ensemble Woosori Mosaek. The ensemble sets out to explore the genre woosori, a combination of pansori and folk song, and the group is actively creating their own music with a motive of emotional Gukak with a story.
