Carnegie Hill Concerts Presents: Music by Yoon-Ji Lee, gamin, KiYoung Kim

STRING NOISE (Conrad Harris, Pauline Kim Harris, Violins)

Yoon-Ji Lee, Electronics

gamin, Piri and Saenghwang

KiYoung Kim, Piano

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gamin and I discussed the interplay and intersection of the triple bill with the three very ecclectic Korean composers that will be presented on this program. It feels truly like a crossroads of classical new music, jazz, theater and improvisation rooted in the sounds of traditional Korean music. – Pauline Kim Harris

A Woman is about the exploration of the self’s relationship to the self through dramatizing the following question: “What is the dialogue we have with ourselves?" "What do you see by yourself" "Who we are?" "What are we looking for?" – gamin

In my new piece, String Noise, gamin, and the voice recordings of Korean comfort women will encounter and be merged with each other to document and deliver the forgotten souls of Korean comfort women and the contemporary Korean society. – Yoon-Ji Lee

Quiet Revolution for Saenghwang and 2 violins:

Imagining different times and spaces of old Korea transforming contemporary music combined with the western instrument: the 2 violins with Korean instrument , Saehwang.

Where we are living in time and space is so different compared to old times. But the good human spirit and mind should be inherited all the way to the time when we are living now. It consists of five parts which lead to a slow part where different concepts of time and space meet. – KiYoung Kim

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Program:

Yoon-Ji Lee NEW WORK for Two Violins, Saenghwang, and Electronics (2023)

gamin A Woman for Piri (2023)

KiYoung Kim: QUIET REVOLUTION

Grace Court for Solo Violin (1996)

My musical thought to find myself in a new environment in New York in 1996.

Like the artisan practice of pulling a single thread from a silkworm

Azaleas for Two Violins (2018)

Musical meditation and recite the poem Azaleas by So Wol Kim

Quiet Revolution for Saenghwang and Two Violins (2018)

Improvisation of conflict, noise, and stillness

Quartet for Two Violins, Piri, and Piano (2023)

The piece is inspired by different ensembles with an eclectic sound—expressing the conflict, noise, and stillness with its characteristic improvisation.

Yoon-Ji Lee is a Korean composer based in Boston and New York. She has been creating music based on unconventional and non-linear structure with a powerful focus on quickly juxtaposing disparate elements through the rapid transformation in both acoustic and electroacoustic mediums. Her works have been engaged with visual arts, dance, literature and intercultural influences. Lee’s chamber and electronic music have been performed in Korea and around the U.S., by ensembles including JACK Quartet, MIVOS Quartet, Argento Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Talea Ensemble, ensemble mise-en, and many others in venues such as Merkin Concert Hall, the Stone at the New School, Chelsea Art Museum, Galerie Pangée (Montreal), and the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts (Seoul). Her music has been broadcast by Korean National Music (Gugak) FM Radio and presented at conference such as the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, New Music Miami ISCM Festival, and New York Sound Circuit Festival. Lee received Mass Cultural Council's Artist Fellowship, the Jane Geuting Camp Fellowship from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Patsy Lu Award from International Alliance of Women in Music, and the Henry M. MacCracken Fellowship from NYU. Lee has participated in artist residencies at National Sawdust, Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts. Her research includes psychoacoustics, improvisation, American experimental music, and intercultural music. Lee earned her PhD at NYU and did her Masters/GD at New England Conservatory. Lee is Currently Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music.

gamin is a distinguished soloist who tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. gamin plays piri (double reed Korean oboe), taepyeonso (double-reed horn), and saenghwang (mouth organ). She is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restrictive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence at the Asian Cultural Council, and Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism of Republic of Korea. gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musician Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Ned Rothenberg, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. Gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. gamin was selected as artist-in-residency(2020-2023) at the HERE Arts Center, NYC, and her album 'Nong' was released by Innova Records in 2020. gamin's Carnegie Hall solo début, accompanied by Gugak orchestra scheduled for March 2020, was postponed by Covid. For 2021-2023, the Jerome Foundation awarded gamin their prestigious 2-year Fellowship. 

KiYoung  Kim is an international, genre-bending composer whose work defies categorization.

Since becoming a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council Grant in 1995, he has broadened his music career in Japan and New York while collaborating with dancers, theater directors, and visual artists.

In 2019, he became a composer-in-residence at Brandeis University.

String Noise, New York’s most daring violin duo, is composed of violinists Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris. Recognized for their distinct blend of disparate genres, from arrangements of songs by punk legends to conceptual minimalist treatises by Alvin Lucier, they have expanded their repertoire with over 50 new works since their debut at Ostrava New Music Days in 2011. Nearly a decade later, they continue to break down the boundaries of traditional expectations and inspire innovative compositions, displaying formidable virtuosity, integrating multimedia art, electronics, improvisation, video projections, opera and dance.

Premieres by String Noise include works by George Lewis, Christian Wolff, Michael Byron, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier, John King, Phill Niblock, Caleb Burhans, Catherine Lamb, David Lang, Petr Kotik, Du Yun, Annie Gosfield, Bernhard Lang, John Zorn, Greg Saunier, Alex Mincek, Tyondai Braxton, James Ilgenfritz, Richard Carrick and others.

String Noise has recorded for Northern Spy Records, Dymaxion Groove, Black Truffle Records, Cold Blue Records, New Focus Recordings, Infrequent Seams, Chaikin Records, Nouveau Electric Records and Astres d’Or and has been featured on WNYC, WKCR, WFMU and BBC Radio.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

New York Manhattan Church of the Advent Hope Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA), 111 East 87th Street, New York, United States