The extraordinary Korean/American composer/komungo virtuoso JIN HI KIM has made performances and workshops at over 100 colleges and universities (including New England Conservatory, Cornell, SUNY, MIT, University of Miami, and Bard all in 2001/02) She appears in lectures, workshops, and performances that have brought a deeper appreciation for the historical contributions to world culture by the Korean people. In addition to her appearances at colleges and universities, her work has been presented on the main stages of significant cultural centers in America, Europe, and Asia including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, DC), Barbican Center (London), the Next Wave Festival, and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival among many others.

In March 2001, Ms. Kim had her Eternal Rock for Komungo and Orchestra premiered at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra to critical acclaim. The work has received subsequent performances in Seattle, Boston, NYC and is scheduled for Florida in 2003. Ms. Kim’s second orchestra commission will be presented in Boston in 2003. This is in addition to chamber music commissions from the Kronos Quartet, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Zeitgeist Ensemble (Minneapolis), Xenakis Ensemble (Holland), and others.

Jin Hi Kim has developed a series of compositions, ‘Living Tones’ in which each tone is alive, embodying its own individual shape, sound, and subtext. These have been presented at the Lincoln Center Festival, Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Julliard School’s Focus Festival ’96, Carnegie Hall, Darmstadt Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival, the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Festival Nieuwe Muziek, Institute for Contemporary Art (London), and the Asian Pacific Festival (New Zealand). Josef Woodard of The Los Angeles Times wrote, "This (Living Tones) is new music/world music at its finest, beyond political correctness into the realm of the sublime, where words and cultural postures fall away."

Ms. Kim is part of a New Generation East including composers such as Tan Dun, Chen Yi, and others who are seamlessly incorporating the historical roots of their ancient traditions with the pulse of a contemporary 21st-century America. Kim's large bi-cultural music/theatre works Dragon Bond Rite and the technologically sophisticated Touching the Moons have been presented to critical acclaim including being awarded the Wolff Ebermann Prize at the International Music Theater Conference in Munich, Germany. These works, developed under the auspices of the Kitchen, MassMoca, and the Japan Society with funds from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, lead to a new direction incorporating a profound Asian cultural heritage, Shamanism, and ritual with a balance of Eastern and Western aesthetics.

Ms. Kim is available for concert performances, workshops and residencies that could include the traditional Korean komungo (6-string zither) and her newly invented electric komungo that was premiered this past season to critical acclaim at the Smithsonian Freer Gallery in Washington DC. Jin Hi Kim has also received the Award for Music Composition for 2001 from the Foundation For Contemporary Performance Art (NYC). This foundation was created by John Cage and Jasper Johns to support innovative creative work in the arts.

In addition to the concert, if you present her Introduction to Korean Music lecture or her Composition Seminar on "Living Tones" there would be a subsidy available for her appearance at your college or university during this period of time.

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