A Week of Strings: Ha-Yang Kim + Dan Joseph

Thu 21 Feb, 2008, 8pm
Old American Can Factory

Composer/cellist Ha-Yang Kim explores naturally occurring acoustical phenomena in a set of meditative pieces for solo amplified cello with electronics. Gorgeous difference tones, beating patterns, sound transformations through extended string techniques and much more are illuminated in pieces by Kim, Lucier, and Tenney.

Ha-Yang Kim - Lens
Alvin Lucier - Indian Summer
James Tenney - Cellogram

Born in Seoul, Korea, Ha-Yang Kim made her professional solo debut at age 16 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. A cellist, composer, and improviser, she has developed a unique language of extended string techniques and has created her own music based on this work. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz and improvised music, to non-western musical sources. She is the founder of Odd Appetite, a cello-percussion duo which performs and commissions new contemporary works alongside original works and improvisations. In seeking new musical experiences, Ha-Yang has performed traditional and new Balinese music, studied Karnatic music concepts and has worked with many diverse musicians and bands such as Evan Ziporyn, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Christian Wolff, Lee Hyla, The National, Louis Andriessen, Alvin Lucier, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Lukas Ligeti, Larry Polansky, and Stefan Poetzsch, in addition to collaborations in dance, theatre, film, and multi-media. Ama, a CD of her own compositions is released on Tzadik. She has also recorded for New World, Cold Blue, Beggars Banquet, New Albion, Karnatic Lab, and Bridge Records. She has toured the US, Europe, Russia, Cuba, Bali, Turkey, and has appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall. Kim is also a frequent artist- in- residence at universities. Currently, she is composing a new program of works to be presented at Roulette later this Spring. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Brooklyn-based composer/performer Dan Joseph presents a new work-in-progress for solo hammer dulcimer and electronics that offers a new perspective on this ancient and largely unknown instrument. Employing state-of-the-art digital processing and unconventional playing techniques, Joseph creates slowly unfolding harmonically rich sound fields that engage the heart and mind.

Dan Joseph is a freelance composer based in New York City. He began his career as a drummer in the vibrant punk scene of his native Washington, DC. During the late 1980s, he was active in the experimental tape music underground, producing ambient-industrial works for independent labels in the U.S. and abroad. He spent the ‘90s in California where he studied at CalArts and Mills College. His principal teachers include Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, and Terry Riley. As an artist who embraces the musical multiplicity of our time, Dan works simultaneously in a variety of media and contexts, including instrumental chamber music, free improvisation, and various forms of electronica and sound art. Since the late 1990s, the hammer dulcimer has been the primary vehicle for his music. As a performer, he is active with his own chamber ensemble, The Dan Joseph Ensemble, as well as in various improvisational collaborations and as an occasional soloist.