Composer, Pianist Jon Jang Visits UK for Year of Migration Residency
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 27, 2019) — The University of Kentucky School of Music and Confucius Institute in conjunction with the Year of Migration presented by the College of Arts and Sciences will host composer and pianist Jon Jang in a residency from March 28-29. The residency will include a free public lecture demonstration and concert.
First up, Jang will present a lecture demonstration titled “Traditions in Transformation: The Musical Language of Jon Jang” from 2-3:15 p.m. Thursday, March 28, in the Niles Gallery in the Lucille C. Little Fine Arts Library and Learning Center. Next, Jang will perform with the UK Jazz Quintet 4 p.m. Friday, March 29, in the Niles Gallery. Early arrival is advised for both events as seating may be limited.
Jang’s music has been likened in The New York Times to the “‘Third Stream’ composers of the ‘50s who married jazz and classical music. Jang honors his two idioms without fully merging them.” Among his best-known works is “The Chinese American Symphony,” which honors the Chinese immigrant laborers who built the first transcontinental railroad in the United States. This composition is the first symphonic work by an American-born Chinese composer to honor Chinese American history. Other epic works include “Tiananmen!”; “Reparations Now! Concerto for Taiko”; and “When Sorrow Turns to Joy – Songlines: The Spiritual Tributary of Paul Robeson and Mei Lanfang,” co-composed with Professor of Ethnomusicology James Newton from University of California, Los Angeles, and commissioned by University of California, Berkeley’s Cal Performances.
The lecture demonstration on March 28 will explore heterogeneity in music as seen through the lens of Jang’s works that are hybrids of Chinese folk songs, black music and European classical music. In keeping with the Year of Migration theme, he will also discuss how he weaves in themes from Chinese American immigrant stories and Asian American history in his works.
The March 29 concert by Jang and the UK Jazz Quintet will feature UK School of Music jazz faculty Paul Deatherage and Danny Cecil and students Khalil Dennis and Michael DeSousa. They will perform Jang’s hybrid of Chinese folk songs in a jazz context. Jang and the UK Jazz Quintet will also perform Charles Mingus’ epic work, “Meditations on Integration,” to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the world premiere performance recorded at the Town Hall in New York.
Jang’s collaborations have ranged from working with world-renowned saxophone, composer and bandleader David Murray to drummer Max Roach and the Kronos Quartet. He is a founding member of Asian Improv aRts, established in 1987 to produce, present and document artistic works that represent the Asian-American experience.
As a scholar, Jang has taught at Stanford University, UC Berkeley and University of California, Irvine. In the tradition of his uncle Philip Choy, who taught the first Chinese American history course at San Francisco State College in 1969, Jang taught the first Asian-American music courses at UC Berkeley (1992-1995) and UC Irvine (1995).
The residency with Jang is sponsored by the School of Music's Division of Musicology and Ethnomusicology in the College of Fine Arts, the College of Arts and Sciences Year of Migration and UK Confucius Institute. For more information about these events, contact Donna Kwon, associate professor of ethnomusicology, by email at donna.kwon@uky.edu or by phone at 859-257-4912.
