The sounds of the ancient Korean instrument, the komungo, will fill Wichers Auditorium of Nykerk Hall of Music when Hope College welcomes Jin Hi Kim to campus on Wednesday, Oct. 17, at 8 p.m.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The Korean-born, American composer has received high acclaim for her work as a cross-cultural composer and a komungo virtuoso.
She has been commissioned for pieces and performed with groups such as the Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Xenakis Ensemble, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Over the last 20 years she has built on her musical philosophy of "Living Tones," a concept rooted in traditional Korean court music.
She has described her compositions as beginning with the idea that each tone is alive and unique. "The precise timbral persona of each tone is treated as its own philosophical mandate, with reverence for the 'life' of the tone," she says.
The komungo, an instrument possibly related to the Japanese koto, is a stringed instrument. Kim had an electric komungo built in 1999, and has performed with both the electric and acoustic instruments.
Kim studied traditional music in Korea before moving to the United States. She is considered one of the leading compositional voices of a new Generation East that is rooted in Korean history, but is evolving a distinctive Pan-Asian/American compositional approach.
She will be speaking with Hope College music students about her composition style on Thursday, Oct. 18, at 11 a.m. in Wichers Auditorium. The public is invited to attend the lecture free of charge as well. The lecture is underwritten in part by a grant from The Korea Society.
Nykerk Hall of Music is located between College and Columbia avenues along the former 12th Street.