YEZU ELIZABETH WOO

VIOLIN

DOYEON KIM

gAYAGEUM

Nonghyun:
Amusing the strings

 at 
Poquatuck Hall
1160 Village Ln, Orient, NY 11957
 
Saturday, May 25, 2024, at 5:00pm
 
Yezu Elizabeth Woo, violin
DoYeon Kim, gayageum

BUY TICKETS / make a reservation

Description

Nonghyun is a Korean term to say vibrato or bending of pitch and executed by pressing and releasing the strings vertically making inflections from microtones to almost thirds. Various types of nong are applied to the notes to emphasize important notes and to signify emotions.
Since Western music’s introduction to Korea, Western-style Korean composers have been strongly influenced by European techniques and music. Most composers studied in Germany and the United States. In the 1960s a new generation of Western-style Korean composers were inspired to explore Korean traditional musical elements and instruments. Today, many composers have written for traditional instruments, and some have composed works for Western instruments that contain traditional musical materials. They have attempted to synthesize these two different musical traditions from Western Europe and Korea.
Korean traditional music is generally divided into two categories based on the purpose of the performance and the audience by whom the music is enjoyed: aak (elegant music), played at the court and enjoyed by the aristocracy; and minsogak (folk and secular music), usually appreciated among the common people and traditionally referred to as folk music.


 

​​Music Program

J.S.Bach, Adagio from Sonata No.1 for solo violin
Isang Yun, Königliches Thema for violin
Sungji Hong, Flash for violin
Younje Cho, CO- for violin

DoYeon Kim, The Songs of swords, 
solo improvisation with 12 strings for Gayageum 

DoYeon Kim, Demon for Violin and Gayageum 

Violin and Gayageum improvisation 


​
This is a production of 
Rites of Spring Music Festival
in collaboration with
Poquatuck Hall​

This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Huntington Arts Council.

​Yezu Elizabeth Woo, violin
Praised for “her technical quality, beauty of sound, and above all, the projection of an uncommon musical sensibility" (El Norte, Monterrey), Violinist Yezu Elizabeth Woo made her debut at Carnegie Hall at age 16, where she became the youngest performer to play all 24 of Niccolo Paganini’s Caprices for solo violin. Yezu has been invited to perform at the Lincoln Center, United Nations (NY), the Smetana Hall (Prague), Musikverein (Vienna), Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and the Berlin Philharmonie, and has recorded for EMI Classics, ECM Records, and MOOK Sound. She was the Artistic Director and co-founder of Shattered Glass, a NYC string ensemble, which debuted to great acclaim in 2012. Winner of the Korean national award, "Outstanding International Musician of the Year" by the Arts Critics Association, as well as "Artist of the Year'' by the Gangwon Foundation, Yezu was appointed as Honorary Ambassador of the City of Chuncheon, where she is currently serving as the Artistic Director of New York in Chuncheon Music Festival. Her commitment to Korean traditional and new music has led her to performances at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) ‘ART FESTA’ as part of the ongoing peace process between the two Koreas, as well as seeing collaborations with the KBS Korean Traditional Orchestra. Born in Freiburg, Germany, Yezu moved to the U.S. from South Korea at age ten to study with Albert Markov. She received her B.M. Degree from the Manhattan School of Music, M.M. Degree at The Juilliard School, Performance Certificate from Bard Conservatory, and her Doctorate Degree at Stony Brook University. Her principal teachers include Albert Markov, Catherine Cho, Laurie Smukler, Arnaud Sussmann and the members of the Emerson Quartet. Yezu is a recipient of Fulbright Scholarship (‘19-20) in Germany, where she was a member of the Ensemble Modern Academy, Frankfurt, and a researcher at the Isang-Yun-Haus in Berlin. She currently splits her time between New York and Berlin.

DoYeon Kim, gayageum
DoYeon Kim is a traditionally trained Korean artist who plays the gayageum, a traditional Korean string instrument, and has developed a uniquely broad approach to music, which incorporates Korean music, jazz, and improvisation, among other influences. Importantly, she introduced the gayageum into the improvisational music scene worldwide. Her recent collaborative projects have broadened to include dancers, actors and visual artists.

During her traditional Korean training, she won numerous international competitions for her gayageum performances, including the Dong-A Ilbo Traditional Music Competition (Gold Prize, 2009), and the On-Nala Korean Music Competition (Gold Prize, 2011). DoYeon is also a graduate of the Contemporary Improvisation Department at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she was the first student ever admitted to the school playing any kind of Korean traditional instrument. She joined the faculty at her alma mater (2022). She also holds graduate degrees from Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute.

She has worked with numerous composers, performing several world premieres, and has been an invited guest lecturer for gayageum and Asian music at Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Universidad Nacional De Colombia, Dartmouth College, and many other universities. The Gyeonggi Sinawi Orchestra, a traditional music orchestra in Korea, has invited her as a music director (2021), and improvisation conductor (2023). DoYeon makes an effort to share a new and broader approach to music, drawing from Korean traditional music, improvisation, and development of original playing techniques.

DoYeon has performed throughout the world leading the Kim Do Yeon Band, and alongside many improvisers, including Tyshawn Sorey, Joe Morris, Agusti Fernandez, Tony Malaby and Anthony Coleman. Her first album, GaPi (2017), intimately combined traditional Korean music and jazz, and was nominated for a 2018 Korean Grammy Award in the crossover album category. The same year, DoYeon released the free improvisation album Macrocosm with Joe Morris, and performed on Jim Snidero’s Korean themed jazz album Project-K (2020), alongside Dave Douglas, Orrin Evans, Linda Oh and Rudy Royston. DoYeon Kim was recognized by Grammy.com as one of 7 Musicians Pushing Ancient Asian Instruments Into The Future (2021), and is performing projects at Roulette as a Van Lier Fellow (2023).