Music Meditation

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Komungo Mandala (2mb)

Digital Buddha

Music and Meditation Residency
www.newhavensymphony.org/page/music-and-meditation-509.htm

During the two seasons (Fall 2009-Spring 2011), NHSO Composer in Residence Jin Hi Kim will be embarking on a new educational project with New Haven area youth. Reaching out to special needs children at three schools, Jin Hi will be teaching Music Meditation and Korean Drumming. Students will experience first hand the role music plays in meditation and experience the calming, focusing benefits this can bring.

Korean traditional music is often rooted in Buddhist meditation. Jin Hi Kim’s komungo solo performances are imbued with meditative and vivid energy that makes it mesmerizing. The komungo is a string instrument indigenous to Korea, originating in the fourth century. The six-stringed, fretted board zither was traditionally performed by male Confucian scholars for their meditation. In her Komungo Meditation Kim creates the live interactive pieces for the world’s only electric komungo and MIDI computer system. Kim remains true to the Korean nature of the instrument as her solo interweaves from an ancient timeless mind to space-age blips.

"Kim’s solo was a study in zen-like elegance." Andrew Jones, Option Magazine

Jin Hi Kim also plays barrel drum set consisting of three to five highly ornate suspended barrel drums. The barrel drums were used in Korean traditional dance piece, in which a dancer also plays the drums with vigorous rhythmic patterns. The drum solo is derived from the Buddhist monk’s drumming on a big barrel drum for meditation and enlightenment.