Biography
Short Bio
Jin Hi Kim is internationally acclaimed innovative komungo (Korean fourth century fretted board zither) virtuoso and a Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition. Kim is New Haven Symphony Orchestra Komungo Master-in-Residence (2011-2012) and Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with New Haven Symphony Orchestra (2009-2011).
She has introduced the indigenous instrument for the first time into Western contemporary music scene through her wide array of compositions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, soundtrack, intercultural ensemble, multi-media, and avant-garde improvisations. Kim has co-designed the world's only electric komungo. Kim’s autobiography Komungo Tango, a 25 years journey of creative collaborations with master musicians around the world, was published in Seoul, S. Korea.
During the three decades Kim has performed as soloist in her own compositions and improvisations at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Royal Festival Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), and many significant new music festivals, jazz festivals, museums and universities throughout the USA, Europe, Canada, South America, Russia, Asia, New Zealand and Australia.
Kim's compositions have been commissioned by leading contemporary musicians and producers including Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Chamber Music Society for the Lincoln Center, Xenakis Ensemble, Boston Modern Music Project, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Zeitgeist, The Kitchen and Japan Society.
Kim has received Award for Music Composition from the Foundation For Contemporary Performance Art, which was created by John Cage and Jasper Johns to support innovative creative work in the arts. She is a recipient of American Composers Orchestra Composer Fellowship, Wolff Ebermann Prize for at International Theater Institute, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, MAP fund from Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet The Composer US Commission as well as the artist residence fellowship for the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Italy, Asian Cultural Council to Japan, Djerassi Foundation, California, and Freeman Artist-In-Residence at Cornell University.
Kim’s komungo solo works represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. Her new komungo compositions are imbued with meditative and vivid energy that makes it mesmerizing. Kim has created live interactive performance pieces with a MIDI computer system using MAX/MSP. Interviews about Kim's electric komungo and performance were featured on KBS-TV Korean National Broadcasting System, Arirang TV -Global Broadcasting, MBC-TV, and YTN National TV in S.Korea.
Kim's new direction of komungo solo recital, Digital Buddha is a 70 minutes long multimedia performance with video mandala and digital images with extraordinary juxtapositions, fast cut swirling
images of a deconstructed electric komungo. The ongoing project has been presented at Korea Festival, Festival Dos Abrazos (Spain), Expo Cibao (Dominican Republic), Expo Zaragoza (Spain), Art & Ideas Festival (New Haven), Detroit Institute of Arts, Festival Salihara (Indonesia), Roulette (New York) and many other places.
In three decades of creative activity, she worked in improvisational forms with traditional music masters from Asia and Africa and performed in a free improvisation context at many international festivals with prominent Western avant-garde improvisers.
Kim created cross cultural works lead to a new direction incorporating a profound Asian cultural heritage with a balance of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Her intercultural collaborations utilize ancient Asian traditions of drum, voice and mask dance with contemporary aesthetics and Western technology: Dong Dong Touching The Moons, a 70 minutes long multi-media lunar ritual, won the Wolff Ebermann Prize for at International Theater Institute Conference in Munich, Germany. Kim's widely acclaimed 90 minutes long cross-cultural mask dance drama, Dragon Bond Rite, featured musicians and dancers from India, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Tuva and the U.S., Both productions were presented at the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) and international venues.
Kim’s soundtracks were produced by Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea (Spain), New American Radio, University of Michigan; broadcast on the national radio networks of KBS/Korea, NPR/USA and WDR/Cologne; and presented at the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC, and international film festivals in Korea, USA, Canada and Europe.
Kim was featured on interviews and performances on Korean National KBS TV and Radio, MBC-TV, Arirang Global TV, YTN-National TV, BBC Radio, PBS in New York; CPTV and WNPR in Connecticut; KPFA and KQED in San Francisco; RAI in Rome, Italy; ABC in Sydney, Australia; DRS in Switzerland; KCUR in Montreal; CBC-TV in Vancouver; VPRO in Holland and many others.
Full Bio
Background:
Jin Hi Kim is internationally acclaimed innovative komungo (Korean fourth century fretted board zither) virtuoso and a Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition. Kim is New Haven Symphony Orchestra Komungo Master-in-Residence (2011-2012) and Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with New Haven Symphony Orchestra (2009-2011).
She has introduced the indigenous instrument for the first time into Western contemporary music scene through her wide array of compositions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, sound track, intercultural ensemble, multi-media, and avant-garde improvisations. Kim has co-designed the world's only electric komungo. Kim's autobiography Komungo Tango, a 25 years journey of creative collaborations with master musicians around the world, was published in South Korea.
During the three decades Kim has performed as soloist in her own compositions and improvisations at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Royal Festival Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Expo Zaragoza (Spain), Vancouver International Jazz & Blues Festival (Canada), and many significant new music festivals, jazz festivals, museums and universities throughout the USA, Europe, Canada, South America, Russia, Asia, New Zealand and Australia.
Kim's compositions have been commissioned by leading contemporary musicians and producers including Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Chamber Music Society for the Lincoln Center, Xenakis Ensemble, Boston Modern Music Project, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Zeitgeist, The Kitchen and Japan Society.
Kim has received Award for Music Composition from the Foundation For Contemporary Performance Art, which was created by John Cage and Jasper Johns to support innovative creative work in the arts. She is a recipient of American Composers Orchestra Composer Fellowship, Wolff Ebermann Prize for at International Theater Institute, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, MAP fund from Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet The Composer US Commission as well as the artist residence fellowship for the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Italy, Asian Cultural Council to Japan, Djerassi Foundation, California, and Freeman Artist-In-Residence at Cornell University.
Komungo Improvisations:
Kim’s komungo solo works represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. Her new komungo compositions are imbued with meditative and vivid energy that makes it mesmerizing. Kim has created live interactive performance pieces with a MIDI computer system. Using MAX/MSP, the komungo sound is processed through a personal computer program in live that is triggered by MIDI foot pedal. Staying true to the nature of the instrument, her solo interweaves from old timeless mind to space-age blips.
Interviews about Kim's electric komungo was featured on Arirang TV -Global Broadcasting <Heart To Heart> and on MBC-TV <Exclamation Mark!> in conjunction with Korean Traditional Craft Exhibition at United Nation. Kim's electric komungo solo performance was broadcast by YTN National TV. Kim was featured in the MBC-TV broadcast of the film <100 Years of Sanjo>. Korean National Broadcasting System (KBS-TV) produced an hour documentary film <Hanminjok Report> on Kim's musical contribution.
Kim's new direction of komungo solo recital, Digital Buddha is a 70 minutes long multimedia performance with video mandala and digital images with extraordinary juxtapositions, fast cut swirling
images of a deconstructed electric komungo. The work funded by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council was premiered at the Korea Festival 2007 in Seoul (S. Korea). The ongoing project has been performed at Festival Dos Abrazos (Spain), Expo Cibao (Dominican Republic), Expo Zaragoza (Spain), Roulette (New York), Art & Ideas Festival (New Haven), Detroit Institute of Arts, World On Stage (Greenwich), Festival Salihara (Indonesia), Roulette (New York), and University of Michigan.
In 1986 Kim was first discovered by avant-garde guitarist Henry Kaiser and has plunged into improvisation scene. In three decades of creative activity, she worked in improvisational forms with traditional music masters from Asia and Africa including Kongar-Ol Ondar, Shonosuke Okura, Akikazu Nakamura, Min Xiao-Fen, Samir Chatterjee and Mor Thiam. She has performed in a free improvisation context at many international festivals with prominent Western avant-garde improvisers including Elliott Sharp, Henry Kaiser, Bill Frisell, Derek Bailey, James Newton, Evan Parker, Joelle Leandre, Billy Bang, William Parker, Oliver Lake, Hans Reichel, Eugene Chadbourne, Leroy Jenkins, and Gerry Hemingway.
Soundtracks:
Kim’s soundtrack, Soundprint of Santiago De Compostela was produced by Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea (Spain). In collaboration with composer Joseph Celli, Soundprint: Asia, commissioned by New American Radio and premiered on the WDR in Germany was broadcast on the national radio networks of KBS/Korea, NPR/USA and WDR/Cologne. In collaboration with artist David Chung at University of Michigan, Kim composed two soundtracks: Pyong Yang,a multimedia installation, and Koryo Saram, an hour long documentary film about Korean refugees from Russia to Kazakhstan, which was presented at the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC, and international film festivals in Korea, USA, Canada and Europe.
Crosscultural Compositions:
Kim has developed a series of compositions using her Living Tones philosophy--The timbral persona of each tone generated is treated with an abiding respect, as its philosophical mandate from Buddhism, a reverence for the ‘life’ of a tone, the color and nuance granted each articulation from Korean Shamanism.
In 1986 She began to be recognized as a composer when she was commissioned by the Kornos Quarter for her work Linking. She was invited to the Composer-to-Composer Telluride residency with John Cage and other leading composers. Nong Rock for string quartet and komungo was commissioned by the Kronos and premiered at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. Voices of Sigimse was premiered by Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at the Lincoln Center Summer Festival with Kim as soloist and Tan Dun conducting.
She was featured composer for the Festival Nieuwe Muziek 1998 and Agate Slice was commissioned for Xenakis Ensemble (Holland). Kim was featured on BBC The World/Global Hit radio program for her One Sky for string chamber orchestra and electric komungo, which was commissioned (by the Great Mountain Music Festival) for the memorial event at DMZ between North and South Korea and was broadcast on KBS-TV in S. Korea.
Kim was awarded the 2000-2001 American Composers Orchestra Composer Fellowship, and her commissioned Eternal Rock for Orchestra and komungo was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Subsequently she performed it with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Riverside Philharmonic, Seattle Creative Orchestra, KBS Symphony, and Key West Symphony. Kim also has introduced Korean tall and colorful barrel drums in the orchestra. Kim’s Eternal Rock II (2006) for orchestra and Korean barrel drums was commissioned and premiered by Boston Modern Orchestra Project and conducted by Gil Rose. Her Monk Dance (2007) for orchestra and Korean barrel drums was commissioned and premiered by New Haven Symphony Orchestra with Kim as soloist. She performed it with Stanford Symphony, Key West Symphony, Empire State Youth Orchestra, and returned to New Haven Symphony for the second performance.
Crosscultural Multimedia:
Kim created cross cultural works lead to a new direction incorporating a profound Asian cultural heritage with a balance of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Her intercultural collaborations utilize ancient Asian traditions of drum, voice and mask dance with contemporary aesthetics and Western technology.
Dong Dong Touching The Moons, a 70 minutes long multi-media lunar ritual, won the Wolff Ebermann Prize for at International Theater Institute Conference in Munich, Germany. The work, commissioned by The Kitchen and presented at the Kennedy Center, interfaced electric komungo, Indian tabla, Korean kagok singer, Indian kathak dancer with a computer-controlled MIDI systems, sensors and digital animation.
Kim's widely acclaimed 90 minutes long cross-cultural mask dance drama, Dragon Bond Rite, featured musicians and dancers from India, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Tuva and the U.S., and was commissioned by the Japan Society through funds from Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and the Rockefeller Foundation Multi Arts Production Fund, and presented at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) and the Festival of Asian Art in Hong Kong.
Media Appearance:
Kim was featured on interviews and performances on Korean National KBS TV and Radio, MBC-TV, Arirang Global TV, YTN-National TV, BBC Radio, PBS in New York; CPTV and WNPR in Connecticut; KPFA and KQED in San Francisco; RAI in Rome, Italy; ABC in Sydney, Australia; DRS in Switzerland; KCUR in Montreal; CBC-TV in Vancouver; VPRO in Holland and many others.
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