Booking Concert & Lecture

Review
About Jin Hi Kim’s Komungo Performances

"Virtuoso, Jin Hi Kim promises thoughtful, shimmering East-West amalgams in combinations that are both new and unlikely to be repeated." - Peter Watrous, The New York Times

"True world music being made here, both ancient and modern and without borders. Outstanding."
- Dennis Yudt, Pulse Magazine

"With her electric komungo, she floated sustained tones and rudimentary melodies or plucked twangs suggesting a jaw-harp or hinted at the bent notes of the blues." - Jon Pareles, The New York Times

"a lush solo improvisation stays true to the nature of the komungo while showing real imagination about how its sound can be processed and coloured." - Clive Bell, Wire Magazine

Solo Recital
Jin Hi Kim’s solo recital, Komugo Meditation is a multimedia collaboration with komungo/electric komungo and video. The work begins with a contemplative hypnotic video mandala and the ancient 4th century acoustic komungo that is rooted in Buddhist meditation. The multimedia collaboration gradually moves into a video mix with extraordinary juxtapositions, fast cut swirling images of a deconstructed electric komungo that becomes a reconfigured live performance through contemporary digital technology. The seventy minute long show, performed without breaks, has a range of interlocking and overlapping images and music from quiet contemplation to a romping ecstasy.

Kim's komungo solo pieces represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. Her new komungo music is imbued with energy both meditative and vivid that mesmerizes and startles the listener. In 1999 Ms. Kim co-designed the world’s only electric komungo. Kim processes komungo sound through a personal computer program, 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.

Requirement:
Transportation from NYC, hotel, airport pick-up, and performance fee. Technical Rider (download file)
Contact: JHKSOURCE@aol.com

Korean Traditional Music Lecture

Korean traditional music lectures by Jin Hi Kim have been successfully presented at over 150 universities in the USA including Wesleyan University, Cornell University, Yale University, Duke University, Indiana University, Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, California Institute of the Arts, University of Minnesota, University of California San Diego, and University of Michigan. Ms. Kim was the Freeman Artist–In–Residence at Cornell University for the fall semester 2004, for which she gave a series of lectures entitled, “Korean Music in a Global Context”. More Information (download file)
Contact: JHKSOURCE@aol.com

Sanjo Ecstasy
Following Jin Hi Kim’s appearance in the national MBC-TV broadcast of the film 100 Years of Sanjo Ms. Kim’s Sanjo Ecstasy was premiered to overwhelming success in Korea in 2003. Sanjo Ecstasy features new generation of Korea's leading musicians performing exotic traditional instruments (kayagum, haegum, janggo), with American jazz percussionist Gerry Hemingway and Jin Hi Kim's electric komungo.

Sanjo has sophisticated melodies and highly a developed rhythmic structure in the various rhythmic cycles. The Sanjo melody is very expressive, meanwhile Buddhist meditative aesthetic is carried out through the long progression of time. In the Sanjo form, the time sense is riveting, hypnotic and almost trance like in it's manner of rhythmic repetition. These highly stylized rhythmic cycles gradually accelerate resulting in a mesmerizing experience.

With an attempt of capturing the aesthetics and energy of the Sanjo, Jin Hi Kim has developed a new piece, Sanjo Ecstasy. This suite has six sections that are performed without break over a ninety minutes period of time. Each piece evokes its own energy and then links to the next. They are immersed with tension and release. In this new work, three traditional Sanjo soloists move in and out of the traditional Sanjo form as the electric komungo layers new sonic textures upon them. Korean janggo and a Western drum set juxtapose the time sense between Sanjo rhythmic cycles and a free jazz time zone.

featured performers:
Sanjo soloists: Kang Unil (haegum fiddle), Ji Aeri (kayagum board zither)
and Park Gun-young (janggo drum)
with
Jin Hi Kim (electric komungo), Gerry Hemingway (drum set)

Contact: JHKSOURCE@aol.com