CONCERT IV: Ha-Yang Kim – the day is burnt, the night is calm
HA-YANG KIM the day is burnt, the night is calm (2021) – World Premiere
Luke Fitzpatrick violin
Erin Wight viola
Ha-Yang Kim cello
Abbey Blackwell bass
Jeffrey Bowen electric guitar
Brandon Ivers electronics
Our fourth concert, also a live broadcast from Town Hall Seattle, features the local multifaceted cellist, composer, and improvisor, Ha-Yang Kim. Kim creates her own music based on a unique musical language of extended string techniques she developed. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz and improvised music, to non-western musical sources.
The new work, composed for violin, viola, cello, bass, harp and electric guitar, explores the sonic wonderland of microtuning. This immersive musical experience invites listeners to a space of meditative listening through drones and intricate timbral exploration. It also features the tuning of Harry Partch’s just intonation 43-tone per octave scale and explores a wide range of harmonic color possibilities – perfect for headphone listening at home!
This concert is no longer available on our Digital Stage.
Learn more about Ha-Yang Kim and her work by watching SMO’s Open Score – A conversation with Ha-Yang Kim.
ABOUT OUR FEATURED COMPOSER:
Ha-Yang Kim, Cellist/Composer/Collaborative Artist
Drawing from a breadth of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, electronic, noise, avant-improv, to non-western sources (Balinese, South Indian, and Korean), Kim’s music is inspired by acoustic phenomena, ritual ceremonial processes, and characterized by an organic visceral lyricism of sound influenced by the East Asian sense of space and emptiness. She developed a unique signature language of extended string techniques and has also composed music for film, dance, and multimedia. Her current practice involves explorations in tunings, and researching acoustical and spatial phenomenology of resonance-amplification-feedback.
Kim’s music is performed throughout the US, Europe, Asia, Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Bali, Cuba, and Canada. She has released 2 monograph albums on the Tzadik label: “AMA” in 2008, and “Threadsuns” in 2014. Performers of her work include the JACK Quartet, FLUX Quartet, flutist Claire Chase, violist Nadia Sirota, vocalist Hanna-Maria Strand, members of International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and Odd Appetite. In addition, the diverse range of artists Ms. Kim has worked with include Meredith Monk, John Zorn, Cecil Taylor, Terry Riley, Alvin Lucier, Louis Andriessen, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, Evan Ziporyn, Yannis Kyriakides, Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori, Miya Masaoka, Hahn Rowe, Bang on a Can All-Stars, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Kronos Quartet, indie-rock band The National, poet Anne Waldman, choreographer Douglas Dunn, video artist Ursula Scherrer, and pop superstar Beyoncè.
Kim has recorded over 25 albums, for labels such as ECM, Tzadik, New World, Cold Blue, Beggars Banquet, New Albion, Brassland, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records. Ms. Kim has been Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room and Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY, and done residences at Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Brandeis Universities, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts College of Art, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Walden School for Young Composers. She has also given presentations of her work at MIT, Massachusetts College of Art, and the Royal Conservatory in Den Haag, Netherlands.
Dedicated to cross-cultural exchange, social transformation, and education, Kim has conducted workshops with Berber youth communities in Morocco, performed at youth detention centers in the Bronx supported by the Ford Foundation, performed alongside gamelan orchestras in Bali, and performed for the UN Humanitarian Aid Campaign.
Kim has received grants and awards from the Jerome Foundation, Van Lier Fellowship, ASCAP, New Music USA, Meet the Composer, Argosy Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Hemera Foundation. She’s also active as a curator of new music events, and has written an article for “ARCANA Volume III” (edited by John Zorn). Ms. Kim composed the original music score for the 2014 documentary film, DIOR AND I, which received worldwide critical acclaim.
Kim studied at the New England Conservatory where her mentors included Joseph Maneri, Lee Hyla, and Michael Gandolfi, and the application of Carnatic music concepts to contemporary music at the Amsterdam Conservatorium. Currently, she lives in Seattle, Washington, and is on the music faculty at the Cornish College of the Arts.