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ISIM presents a thrilling performance at Roulette: the culmination of the three-day ISIM workshops, discussions, and jam sessions held at at York College, June 29 – July 1. Featuring guest artists, Gamin, Hyun-Sik Shin, Jane Ira Bloom and Elliott Sharp, and joined by the ISIM ensemble, the ISIM Performance explores and showcases the wide-open possibilities of crosscultural dialogue through improvisation and collective expression.

Jin Hi Kim, Program Director

Guest artists:
Gamin, piri, taepyungso (Korea)
Hyun-Sik Shin, ajeng (Korea)
Jane Ira Bloom, saxophone (USA)
Elliott Sharp, guitar (USA)

Ensemble Participants:
Amanda Schoofs (voice),  Andrea Wolper (voice),  Anton Kotikov (saxophone), Bill Johnson (trumpet), Billy Satterwhite (bass), Bob Gluck (piano), Brogan Woodburn (guitar), Christopher Bakriges (piano), Ed Sarath (flugelhorn), Emily Williams (cello), Glen Whitehead (trumpet),  Jeff Fairbanks (trombone), Jeffrey Roberts (guqin/electronics),  Jin Hi Kim (electric komungo), Lynn Book (extended voice/sound FX/whistles), Maja Radovanlija (guitar), Malcolm Lynn Baker (saxophone), Matthew Endahl (piano), Michael Titlebaum (saxophone), Nora McCarthy (voice), Paul Musso (guitar),  Paul Sinclair (clarinet/bass clarinet), Phil Fried (upright electric bass), Richard Robeson (guitar),  Rob Kaplan (guitar), Roman Stolyar (piano),  Rui Li (trumpet), Stephen Nachmanovitch (violin), Tim Tsang (electronics/synthesizer),  and Thomas Zlabinger (bass)

The International Society for Improvised Music (ISIM) promotes performance, education, and research in improvised music, and illuminates the connections between musical improvisation and creativity across fields. Melding diverse cultures, ethnicities, disciplines, and ideas that shape society at large, today’s musical world is increasingly characterized by creative expressions that transcend conventional style categories. Improvisation is a core aspect of this global confluence of this eclectic musical activity. ISIM brings together artists, listeners, teachers, industry professionals, and researchers, to further the growth and understanding of improvisation in our educational systems and society at large. Having hosted six festival/conferences since 2006 in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Denver, Santa Cruz, and Wayne NJ, ISIM has provided a robust forum for a wide range of artists, teachers, and thinkers tocome together and engage in a wide range of collaborations.

ISIM’s Crosscultural Improvisation Performance series began at its 2010 Festival/Conference, which was held at the University of Michigan in collaboration with the U-M Center for Korean Studies and Confucius Institute. At this event, Korean and Chinese musicians presented their traditional improvisational repertoire and improvised with ISIM members. This year, ISIM presents the extended Workshops and Performance with jam sessions, cultural exchange, and discussions of the unique historical differences in improvisation. The event presents an ideal opportunity to gain exposure to wide-ranging creative strategies and approaches to improvisation pedagogy, as well
as to interact with top-level musicians from highly varied backgrounds. In 2014, ISIM will continue the crosscultural improvisation, but within the more expanded ISIM festival/conference format that also features papers, panel discussions, and a broader array of daytime and evening performances.
improvisedmusic.org

About the Guest Artists

Gamin is one of the most celebrated gukak artists in her generation. She is a versatile musician that she plays piri, taepyeongso (Korean traditional oboe family) and saengwhang (ancient wind-blow instrument). From a young age, she began training in music and studied with Jung Jae-Guk, the title holder of the Important Intangible Cultural Asset No, 46 for piri and daechwita. From 2000 to 2010, Gamin was a member and assistant principal player of the Contemporary Gukak Orchestra at the National Gukak Center, the hub for training and preserving Korean traditional music. She has toured internationally and a recipient of several cultural exchange programs including Arts Council Korea and Asian Cultural Council.

Hyung-Sik Shin is considered the best ajaeng player in Korea. He has won the top prizes at the traditional music competitions and performed outstanding improvisational Korean music not only in Korea, but also on global stages. He was chosen as one of the “10 future leaders for next generation” by The Auditorium: Music & Performing Arts Journal. Currently, Shin is a leader of Korean traditional improvisation ensemble, Ensemble Sinawi. He is also an Instructor of Korean traditional department at Korean National University of Arts. Shin has received Best prize of Honam Arts Festival, Gwang Ju National Traditional Music Competition, Daegu National Traditional Music Competition, Jeon Ju Daesaseup play,  prize of 21 C. Korean Music project and KBS Grand prize of Korean traditional music.

Jane Ira Bloom is a soprano saxophonist/composer and Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition. Bloom is recognized as a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz. She is the winner of the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Award, the Jazz Journalists & Downbeat Critics Poll Award for soprano saxophone, and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for Jazz Innovation. Bloom was the first musician commissioned by the NASA Art Program and has an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid 6083janeirabloom). Bloom is a professor of jazz and contemporary music at of the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in NYC.
janeirabloom.com

Elliott Sharp is a composer, double-neck guitar performer, and producer central to the NYC new music scene. He leads Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition. Sharp’s Oneirika was premiered in 2012 at MaerzMusik, Berlin. He was commissioned by Issue Project Room to create Occam’s Razor for double string-quartet for his 60th birthday marathon and by violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn to compose Storm Of the Eye for her Encores project. He also directed, wrote, and composed About Us, a sci-fi opera for all-teenage performers at the Bayerische Staatsoper. He has been featured at Donaueschingen and Darmstadt festivals and the Venice Biennale  in 2003, 2006 and 2012.  Sharp’s work is the subject of the documentary Doing The Don’t.
elliottsharp.com

The program is made possible with support from Arts Council Korea and York College/CUNY.

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$15 General Admission
$10 Members/Students/Seniors

Two innovative projects integrating traditional instruments of Japan and Korea with contemporary western musical forms and concepts. Ralph Samuelson (shakuhachi) and Yoko Hiraoka (shamisen and koto) present new works by composers Ned Rothenberg and Elizabeth Brown, and Jin Hi Kim (komungo, barrel drums) presents Digital Buddha II, featuring digital projections from Joel Cadman and Benton C-Bainbridge, and a four-part suite including three world premieres, with Thomas Buckner (voice) and Samir Chatterjee (tabla).

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Digital Buddha (work-in-progress) Conceived by Jin Hi Kim Komungo and Electric Komungo, Jin Hi Kim Percussion, Lukas Ligeti Video Mix, Benton-C Bainbridge Video Mandala, Joel Cadman "Digital Buddha" begins with a contemplative hypnotic video mandala and the ancient 4th century acoustic komungo that is rooted in Buddhist meditation. Then it gradually moves into a video mix with extraordinary juxtapositions, fast cut swirling images of a deconstructed electric komungo. The show has a range of interlocking and overlapping images and music from quiet contemplation to a romping ecstasy. On the world's only electric komungo, Kim processes komungo sound through a personal computer program, blending acoustic, electrified and altered sounds via MIDI foot pedal control of a custom MAX/MSP program. While staying true to the nature of the instrument, her electric komungo solo performances interweave from old timeless mind to space-age blips. Jin Hi Kim is highly acclaimed as both an innovative komungo (4th century fretted board zither) virtuoso and for her cross-cultural compositions. Her work has been presented on Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Royal Festival Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), and many significant new music festivals and jazz festivals throughout the USA, Europe, Canada, South America, Russia, Asia, New Zealand and Australia. Kim's komungo solo pieces represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. She has created the interactive pieces for the world's only electric komungo and MIDI computer system using MAX/MSP. Kim's electric komungo solo performances have been presented at Freer Gallery at Smithsonian Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and YTN-TV National Broadcasting in S.Korea. An interview about the electric komungo was broadcast on MBC-TV in conjunction with Korean Traditional Craft Exhibition 2007 at United Nation. Kim was featured on BBC Radio News, The World/Global Hit radio program about the premier of her One Sky , for electric komungo and chamber string orchestra, which was broadcast on KBS TV (S. Korea). Please visit www.jinhikim.com.

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"The ancient Korean komungo (a fourth century fretted board zither) and Jin Hi Kim's high-tech electric komungo meet in a program ranging from Confucian meditation to confused agitation. The composer/performer has pioneered a wide array of compositions and improvisations for the komungo with the Kronos Quartet, Xenakis Ensemble, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and with musicians such as Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne, William Parker, James Newton, Oliver Lake, Peter Kowald, Evan Parker, Joelle Leandre, Fredy Studer, Elliott Sharp, Henry Kaiser and others. This event celebrates the release of her new CD, Komungo."

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“The contrabass virtuoso from Paris presents herself in duos with jazz bassist William Parker and Korean konobgo player Jin Hi Kim. Leandre’s musical associaates have ranged form Morton Feldman and the Ensemble Intercontemporian to Anthony Braxton and Fred Frith. Her improvisations and realizations of contrabass classics are legend. Aggressively multi-cultural, post-historical, pan-traditional, and spontaneous.”