Are you interested in the Gwangju World Music Festival?

Gwangjublog is offering 20 limited free tickets(costs 20,000won) for you.

The performance : EASTrio (East Asian String Trio)

Time: 4PM on  August 29th at the Bitgoeul Civic Culture Center (near downtown)

If you want free tickets to this event please send your name and contact number to gwangjublog@hotmail.com

more info : http://www.gjwmf.com/index/eng/program/artist_east.php

Artists   

Heo, Yoon-Jeong

Award winning Geomungo soloist and composer, Heo, Yoon-Jeong has been hard at work showcasing the deep and majestic sounds of Korean traditional six-stringed zither to the world. She does so excellently by expanding the possibilities of the Geomungo and Korean music by bringing together different genres ranging from traditional music, impromptu music, and contemporary music. Having studied the Geomungo Sanjo under the guidance of renowned master and a living treasure Han Kap-deuk, Heo, Yoon-Jeong has since been designated official successor of the Intangible Asset #16, the skills for playing the Geomungo Sanjo.

Her passion and talent has brought her to perform at various venues across the globe such as Boston, New York, Japan, Germany and of course South Korea, among others. One of the highlights of her music career was spending six months in New York after being selected by USA’s Rockefeller Foundation as a resident artist for the Asian Cultural Council New York for 2007/2008.

Min Xiao Fen

Pipa player, singer and composer Min Xiao-Fen is known for her fluid style. She is a world recognized virtuoso in both orchestral and underground projects. Ms. Min was a pipa soloist with the Nanjing Traditional Music Orchestra in China, winning the Jiangsu national pipa competition and eventually becoming a first class artist in China. Pipa is a four-stringed plucked instrument that looks like a Chinese lute. Min’s virtuosity has propelled her to be the soloist at world premiers of music by Philip Glass, John Zorn and others. She’s also played solo sets of Thelonius Monk music on Pipa, a daunting challenge, but well handled by this charming, engaging performer. She has lived in the USA since 1992. She is a composer as well, and has been featured in the American Orchestra’s “Composer Out Front” series. She founded Blue Pipa, Inc. (www.bluepipa.org) and currently lives in New York.

Tanaka Yumiko

Yumiko Tanaka is a shamisen virtuoso from Japan. The shamisen is the famous three-stringed instrument with a long neck featured in many ancient Japanese prints. As a vocalist and shamisen player she also jumps genres, playing traditional, contemporary music, new music and for the theatre. She also won a national grant to study puppetry, which she did under puppet master Basil Twist in New York. She composed and performed for the theater piece ‘Dogugaeshi’ by Basil Twist premiered in NY in 2004. Her mix of shamisen, vocals and theatre is an unforgettable performance, transfixing even the youngest music fans. You can listen to her instrumental improvisation in her solo album ‘tayutauta’ released from Improvised Music from Japan in 2004.

Line up

Heo, Yoon-Jeong / Geomungo, Ajeng

Min Xiao Fen / Chinese Pipa, Vocals

Tanaka Yumiko / Japanese Shamisen, Vocals

American Brian Dendy on drums,

Korean Park Se-beom on bass (and sometimes also guitar),

and Brit Michael Paul on guitar.

Michael – 22 years-old and originally from Middlesbrough, England – told me about the band.

“Back in March Andrew Vlasblom started up Rock Night on Wednesday nights at German Bar,” he explained.

“Lots of folks would attend and several of us would jam together if we could.

“Most of us had been in bands before.

“Things continued that way – us jamming together when we were able – until one day Se-beom told us that he discovered a practice space we could use at the University of Education.

“Once that happened we started to practice in earnest and take things a little bit more seriously than we had been.

“Most of us had played in bands, we all love live music… So why not, we realized – why not create something new? 

“Playing music together helps us relax and we get to do something interesting outside of teaching.  How could either of those be bad things?"

He continued:

“Pretty quickly things started to snowball and after being together just a few weeks we were presented with more and more opportunities – like performing at the Gwangju World Music Festival, for example.

“As native English speakers here, we’re all a very lucky and privileged bunch, and it’s amazing how many opportunities are available to us as long as we’re willing to try.

“Since music is something we all really enjoy, why not make the most it?  It almost seems as if we’d be disrespecting those who aren’t as lucky as us if we didn’t.”

And as for Friday night’s show:

“We were thrilled when the Gwangju World Music Festival asked us to play…  I'm not sure about everybody else, but personally, this will be my first outdoors gig, and to play the main party stage on opening night… it seems like such an honor.

“We’re especially happy because we’ll get to play our music in front of people who might not normally hear it.

"Playing at a multicultural music festival in a public venue on opening night with other incredible bands is dream-world material. We're still basking in some pretty tasty glory.

“We hope that folks will come out to the show – not only to see us, but to check out the other bands that will be playing too.  Several of them look like they’ll be incredible.”

The concert – starting at 7 p.m. – will take place at Geumnam-ro Park.

Geumnam-ro Park is the recessed park located just up the street from Migliore, within the vicinity of Lemon Table, and immediately next to Geumnam-ro 4ga Subway Station.

Deserts is also playing on Saturday night at Speakeasy with Feed the Boats!  For more information, please visit:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=508124512#!/event.php?eid=141105565930246&ref=ts

And finally, for more information about the Gwangju World Music Festival, please visit:
http://www.gjwmf.com/index/eng/index.php

(Photos are courtesy of Amanda Hollingworth, and they were taken during Deserts' first performance at the Gwangju University of Education.)