[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Live concert + fieldwork video screening]
Projecting Tradition into the Future & the Creative Voice Within

This event now concluded. Report available here.

 

 

  • Friday, June 7, 2019 7:00 pm

  • Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
  • Artist: Jen Shyu (Composer, Vocalist, Multi-instrumentalist, Dancer, Producer; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
  • Language: English (with consecutive interpretation)
  • Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
  • Admission: Free (reservations required)

Shyu will offer the audience a window into her creative process with a lecture and video screening of her extensive fieldwork in traditional music, dance and ritual from her parents’ native countries of East Timor and Taiwan, along with her research in Indonesia, Korea and Japan.

She will talk specifically about her current research into noh and biwa and how learning aspects of these traditions has influenced her original music and theatrical works. Shyu will perform excerpts from her last solo work Nine Doors as well as excerpts from Zero Grasses (work-in-progress).

Report

Jen Shyu

2019 Guggenheim Fellow, 2019 USA Fellow, 2016 Doris Duke Artist, US-Japan Creative Artists Fellow, Fulbright scholar, groundbreaking multilingual vocalist-composer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer JEN SHYU (徐秋雁) has been named “one of the most creative vocalists in contemporary improvised music” (The Nation). She’s worked with Anthony Braxton, Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Dresser, and many others, and was the first female and vocalist as band leader on Pi Recordings. Her last two albums on Pi (Song of Silver Geese, Sounds and Cries of the World) landed in the “Top 10 Best Albums” of 2017 and 2015 by The New York Times, NPR, etc. A Stanford University graduate dedicated to traditional music study, she’s performed her music at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Photo: Steven Schreiber