Carnegie Hill Concerts presents:
Quiet Revolution
–
gamin, Piri and Saenghwang
Tom Chiu, Violin
Conrad Harris, Violin
Yoon-Ji Lee, Electronics
KiYoung Kim, Piano
–
gamin: A Woman for Piri (2023, WORLD PREMIERE)
gamin and I discussed the interplay and intersection of the triple bill with the three very eclectic Korean composers that will be presented on this program. It feels truly like a crossroads of classical new music, jazz, theater, and improvisation rooted in the sounds of traditional Korean music. – Pauline Kim Harris
A Woman is about the exploration of the self’s relationship to the self through dramatizing the following question: “What is the dialogue we have with ourselves?" "What do you see by yourself" "Who we are?" "What are we looking for?" - gamin
KiYoung Kim: QUIET REVOLUTION
Grace Court for Solo Violin (1996)
My musical thought to find myself in a new environment in New York in 1996. Like the artisan practice of pulling a single thread from a silkworm. – KiYoung Kim
Azaleas for Two Violins (2018)
Musical meditation and recite the poem Azaleas by So Wol Kim. – KiYoung Kim
Yoon-Ji Lee: Nine for Two Violins, Saenghwang, and Electronics (2023, WORLD PREMIERE)*
*Commissioned by Carnegie Hill Concerts for violin duo String Noise
In “Nine,” String Noise, gamin, and the voice recordings of Korean comfort women will encounter and be merged with each other to document and deliver the forgotten souls of Korean comfort women and the contemporary Korean society, of which there are only 9 survivors remaining, as one recently passed away in May. – Yoon-Ji Lee
Trio for Saenghwang and Two Violins (2018)
Improvisation of conflict, noise, and stillness.
Imagining different times and spaces of old Korea transforming contemporary music combined with the Western instrument: the 2 violins with the Korean instrument, Saehwang.
Where we are living in time and space is so different compared to old times. But the good human spirit and mind should be inherited all the way to the time when we are living now. It consists of five parts which lead to a slow part where different concepts of time and space meet. – KiYoung Kim
Five Worlds for Two Violins, Piri, and Piano (2023, WORLD PREMIERE)
The piece is inspired by different ensembles with an eclectic sound—expressing conflict, noise, and stillness with its characteristic improvisation. – KiYoung Kim
–
Yoon-Ji Lee is a Korean composer based in Boston and New York. She has been creating music based on unconventional and non-linear structure with a powerful focus on quickly juxtaposing disparate elements through the rapid transformation in both acoustic and electroacoustic mediums. Her works have been engaged with visual arts, dance, literature and intercultural influences. Lee’s chamber and electronic music have been performed in Korea and around the U.S., by ensembles including JACK Quartet, MIVOS Quartet, Argento Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Talea Ensemble, ensemble mise-en, and many others in venues such as Merkin Concert Hall, the Stone at the New School, Chelsea Art Museum, Galerie Pangée (Montreal), and the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts (Seoul). Her music has been broadcast by Korean National Music (Gugak) FM Radio and presented at conference such as the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, New Music Miami ISCM Festival, and New York Sound Circuit Festival. Lee received Mass Cultural Council's Artist Fellowship, the Jane Geuting Camp Fellowship from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Patsy Lu Award from International Alliance of Women in Music, and the Henry M. MacCracken Fellowship from NYU. Lee has participated in artist residencies at National Sawdust, Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts. Her research includes psychoacoustics, improvisation, American experimental music, and intercultural music. Lee earned her PhD at NYU and did her Masters/GD at New England Conservatory. Lee is Currently Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music.
gamin is a distinguished soloist who tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. gamin plays piri (double reed Korean oboe), taepyeonso (double-reed horn), and saenghwang (mouth organ). She is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. 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 Republic of Korea. gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musician Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. Gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. gamin was selected as artist-in-residency(2020-2023) at the HERE Arts Center, NYC, and her album 'Nong' was released by Innova Records in 2020. gamin's Carnegie Hall solo début, accompanied by Gugak orchestra scheduled for March 2020, was postponed by Covid. For 2021-2023, the Jerome Foundation awarded gamin their prestigious 2-year Fellowship.
KiYoung Kim is an international, genre-bending composer whose work defies categorization.
Since becoming a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council Grant in 1995, he has broadened his music career
in Japan and New York while collaborating with dancers, theater directors, and visual artists.
In 2019, he became a composer-in-residence at Brandeis University.
Violinist Conrad Harris has performed new works for violin at Ostrava Days, Darmstadt Ferrienkürse für Neue Musik, Gulbenkian Encounters of New Music, Radio France, Warsaw Autumn, and New York's Sonic Boom Festival. In addition to being a member of the FLUX Quartet and violin duo String Noise, he is concertmaster/soloist with the S.E.M. Orchestra, Ostravská Banda, STX Ensemble, Wordless Music Orchestra and Ensemble LPR.
He has performed and recorded with such artists as Elliott Sharp, Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, David Behrman "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Jean-Claude Risset, Rohan de Saram and Tiny Tim. His recordings of the Lejaren Hiller Violin Sonatas with pianist Joseph Kubera will be released in 2018 on New World Records. He has also recorded for Asphodel, Vandenburg, CRI, and Vinyl Retentive Records.
New music champion and recipient of the Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant, violinist/composer Tom Chiu has performed over 200 premieres worldwide by influential musicians, including David First, Oliver Lake, Alvin Lucier, Michael Schumacher, Henry Threadgill, and the late Muhal Richard Abrams. Chiu has also created mixed-media works with choreographer Pam Tanowitz, video artist Phill Niblock, balloonist Judy Dunaway, and Mabou Mines director Lee Breuer. His original works, dedicated to Joan La Barbara, Sylvere Lotringer, Bobby Few, OpenEnded Group, and others, have been premiered at the BBC, Mount Tremper Arts, Park Avenue Armory, EMPAC, Roulette, STEIM Amsterdam, Walker Art Center, Bang-on-a-Can Marathon, MOMA PS1, and Anthology Film Archives. As founder of the FLUX Quartet, he has led a pioneering ensemble that has “brought a new renaissance to quartet music.” (Village Voice) Chiu earned degrees in chemistry and music from Yale and a doctorate from Juilliard and frequently appears as a cultural consultant in multiple artistic formats, most recently as a panelist for the NEA.