Percussionist/composer Jin Hi Kim to play two dates in Minnesota/Wisconsin

Korean percussionist and composer Jin Hi Kim will perform an original work, with some local musical help, in two March performances: the first in River Falls, Wisconsin and the second in St. Paul.

The first concert of Kim’s commissioned work Ritual for the Earth 2024 will take place at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls (UWRF) campus on March 14, 7:30 p.m. The concert will be held at the Abbott Concert Hall, and is free and open to the public. This concert is part of an annual Commissioned Composer event. Kim is this year’s guest commissioned composer and is doing some guest artist lectures and master classes with students.

The concert will include UWRF students playing a variety of instruments, including handmade percussion instruments made from natural materials such as seashells, gourds, bamboo, wood and metal. Members of Shinparam, a Twin Cities-based traditional Korean percussion ensemble, will provide some Korean rhythms that will be woven into the piece.

In addition, Kim’s new commissioned composition, Vocalization in Motion, for chorus and two percussionists, will be world-premiered at the UWRF concert.

More information on this concert and on the composer may be found at the attached link.

The second concert, entitled Living Sounds: Music of Jin Hi Kim will take place at Zeitgeist Studio in downtown St. Paul, on Saturday, March 16, 7 p.m. The concert will include works by Kim, including NORI II for clarinet, saxophone, and two percussionists (saxophonist David Milne as guest artist), and Ritual for the Earth featuring Zeitgeist, Kim, samulnori ensemble Shinparam, and other musicians. Rounding out the program, Zeitgeist and Kim will join forces in an improvisation.

Also featured on the program will be the premiere of a newly-created work, World Sanjo, by Zeitgeist member Pat O’Keefe, with O’Keefe on clarinet and guest artist Peter O’Gorman on drumset.

Kim’s work has been recognized nationally and internationally.  She is known as a pioneer for introducing komungo (also spelled geomungo, a large traditional Korean stringed instrument) into the American contemporary music scene. She has also done extensive solo performances on the world’s only electric komungo with live interactive computer programs in several large-scale multimedia performance pieces such as Ghost Komungobot, Digital Buddha, and Touching The Moons.

Kim’s Living Tones compositions have been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Festival Nieuwe Muziek for Xenakis Ensemble (The Netherlands), Tan Dun’s New Generation East program for Chamber Music Society for the Lincoln Center, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Meet The Composer U.S. Commission, National Endowment for the Arts and many others.