Author: Yurim Oh

gamin
gamin is a New York-based distinguished soloist performing traditional Korean music as well as cross-disciplinary collaborations worldwide. Born in Seoul, she began studying piano at the age of six, violin at the age of nine, Korean music (piri major) at age fifteen. In 1998, she received her B.A. in Korean Music from Seoul National University. Her main instrument is the piri, a double reed instrument similar to the oboe. She also plays the taepyeonso (a double-reed horn) and saenghwang (a type of mouth organ). She is a yisuja, official holder of the Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Classical Court Music, Classical Piri Music, and Daechita (royal military music). She has also dedicated herself to academic studies, receiving a D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts) in Korean traditional music from Seoul National University. She was a member of the National Gugak Orchestra from 2004 to 2010 as assistant principal piri player. She was the recipient of a residency program grant from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea in 2011 & 2012 and has toured with lecture concerts at Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Northeastern University, University of Hartford, among other places. Currently, gamin is a visiting scholar at the James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies in University of Pennsylvania.

Jeff Fairbanks
Deemed a “rising multi-faceted star if not musical voice on the New York scene” by CriticalJazz, 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow Jeff Fairbanks has won a number of highly competitive awards for composing, including the USAF Sammy Nestico Award, the Jerome Fund, ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award, and the BMI Charlie Parker Award. He has won eight grants from the following institutions: the Aaron Copland Fund, the Queens Council on the Arts, and New Music USA (formerly American Music Center). Fairbanks is a native of South Florida. After earning a Master’s degree in Jazz Composition from USF in 2005, he moved to New York to join the BMI Jazz Composer Workshop under Jim McNeely. Now, in addition to leading and writing for Project Hansori and other projects, Jeff freelances as a composer and performer and teaches with the New York Jazz Academy. He lives in Queens, NY with his wife, Heun Choi, and their two children.

Photo by Caroline Forbes
Edward Rothenberg
Composer/Performer Ned Rothenberg has been internationally acclaimed for both his solo and ensemble music, presented for the past 33 years on 5 continents. He performs primarily on alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and the shakuhachi – an endblown Japanese bamboo flute. His solo work utilizes an expanded palette of sonic language, creating a kind of personal idiom all its own. In an ensemble setting, he leads the trio Sync, with Jerome Harris, guitars and Samir Chatterjee, tabla, works with the Mivos string quartet playing his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings and collaborates around the world with fellow improvisors. Recent recordings include this Quintet, The World of Odd Harmonics, Ryu Nashi (new music for shakuhachi), and Inner Diaspora, all on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, as well as Live at Roulette with Evan Parker, and The Fell Clutch, on Rothenberg’s Animul label.

Satoshi Takeishi
Satoshi Takeishi, drummer, percussionist, and arranger is a native of Mito Japan. He studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. While at Berklee he developed an interest in the music of South America and went to live in Colombia following the invitation of a friend. He spent four years there and forged many musical and personal relationships. One of the projects he worked on while in Colombia was “Macumbia” with composer/arranger Francisco Zumaque in which traditional, jazz, and classical music were combined. With this group he performed with the Bogota Symphony Orchestra to do a series of concerts honoring the music of the most popular composer in Colombia, Lucho Bermudes. In 1986, he returned to the U.S. where he began work as an arranger in Miami. In 1987, he produced “Morning Ride” for jazz flutist Nestor Torres on Polygram Records. His interest expanded to the rhythms and melodies of the Middle East where he studied and performed with Armenian-American oud master Joe Zeytoonian. Since moving to New York in 1991, he has performed and recorded with many musicians such as Ray Barretto, Carlos “Patato” Valdes, Eliane Elias, Marc Johnson, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Anthony Braxton, Mark Murphy, Herbie Mann, Paul Winter Consort, Rabih Abu Khalil, Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band, Erik Friedlander, and Pablo Ziegler to name a few. He continues to explore multi-cultural, electronic, and improvisational music with local musicians and composers in New York.