GAMIN is…”a true pioneer and innovator, leading these instruments in exciting new directions” — Ralph Samuelson (senior advisor of ACC_Asian Cultural Council)
“gamin appears virtually unlimited as to the kinds of sounds she can get out of her instrument!” — Anthony Paul De, Ritis (composer, professor of Northeastern University)
From 2000 to 2010, she was a member of the Contemporary Gukak Orchestra at the National Gukak Center, the hub for training and preserving Korean traditional music.
gamin also studied the sinawi, the shaman ritual music. Due to her virtuosity, she can play from the very authentic jeongak and sinawi to contemporary music with electronic sounds as well.
She has released three albums.
She received a grant from the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism in 2011 and has performed at Harvard, Northwestern, Dartmouth, etc. and in Paris, Strasbourg, Freibrug, and Karlsruhe.
Currently, as a yisuja* of the Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for piri and Daechita, she tries to preserve traditional music, and enhances the tradition as well. *yisuja is a title designated to someone who mastered a course study of intangible cultural assets of Korea. jeonsuja is a lower title.
JEN SHYU has performed with saxophonist and 2014 MacArthur Fellow Steve Coleman since 2003 and has collaborated with many luminaries. Shyu has performed her own music at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, BAM, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubin Museum of Art, Asia Society, Blue Note, National Theater of Korea, etc.
A Stanford graduate in opera with classical violin and ballet training, Shyu won many piano competitions and studied traditional music and dance in Cuba, Taiwan, Brazil, China, South Korea, East Timor and Indonesia. Shyu has won commissions and support from MAP Fund, the NEA, Jerome Foundation, etc., as well as fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council, Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc.
Shyu has produced seven albums as a leader, the most recent two included on The New York Times’ Best Albums lists. Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times that her concerts are “the most arresting performances I’ve seen over the past five years. It’s not just the meticulous preparation of the work and the range of its reference, but its flexibility: She seems open, instinctual, almost fearless.”
Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, JUNYI CHOW began studying piano and music theory at the age of 5. He gained admittance into Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2005. After graduation in 2011, Chow began to study in the U.S. at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music as a student of P.Q. Phan, and completed his Master’s degree in May 2013.
Chow has won many awards in various forms of music composition. He was the Second Prize of Taipei Chinese Orchestra International Composition Competition in 2010 with his Chinese Orchestra work, Kampung. In December 2010, his first symphonic work, Getaran, was commissioned and premiered by the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and toured Kuantan, Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Chow was also the finalist of 2013 United States ASCAP Morton Gould Prize. In March 2016, Chow’s Guanzi & Orchestra is selected to perform at the 2016 Hong Kong Chinese Chinese Orchestra International Composers’ Summit during Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Chow is now the Composer-in-residence of Vivo Experimental Orchestra from Malaysia and The TENG Company from Singapore. Chow’s music has been performed in Malaysia, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, U.S.A., and Canada. As a pianist and cellist, Chow plays Classical repertoire as well as free improvisations with musicians in KL, Beijing, and NYC.
LÂLE SAYOKO (Sufi dance artist) was one of the founding members of Japan’s famous Samanyolu professional bellydance group, and has since developed her own solo career touring with UK’s Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers on a 44 city tour of the UK, to Turkey’s Baba Zula, and with New York’s Bella Gaia multimedia Earth from Space journey show. Lâle aspires for dance to be a powerful communicator though traditional technique and spiritual embodiment. She has lately been studying Sufi dance with Rana Gorgani, and in April 2018 Gorgani awarded her the International Sufi Dance Certification Of Cid UNESCO, granting her authority to teach Gorgani’s method of Sufi dance training. She teaches Sufi Dance at CRS every first Thursday of the month (except July 4, 2019) and, with CRS co-founders Yasuko Kasaki and Christopher Pelham, she leads the CRS Healing Circles + Whirling Prayer that take place every third Thursday of the month at CRS.
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