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CRS Presents Crossing Boundaries 20: Jen Shyu, Sumi Tonooka, Val Jeanty at The Jazz Gallery (Site)
Sunday November 5, 2023, 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
$20 – $30
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents Crossing Boundaries Concert Series Vol. 20, curated by Jen Shyu, featuring new work by Val Jeanty (SoundChemist), Jen Shyu (vocals, Taiwanese moon lute, Japanese biwa, Korean gayageum), & Sumi Tonooka (piano).
Their new material explores the theme of immigration, growing out of their own rich multi-ethnic family and musical histories, from Africa, Japan, Timor, Taiwan, Haiti, and beyond. This concert mixes music with movement, and text.
ABOUT CROSSING BOUNDARIES CONCERT SERIES
CROSSING BOUNDARIES is a concert series devoted to dissolving boundaries between performers and audiences, the traditional and contemporary, classical and experimental, and the culturally specific and the global. Series curators are given the opportunity to create unique performance events in collaboration with musical, visual, and/or movement artists of their choosing. The series was conceived in 2018 by the Korean traditional wind player and composer gamin, who has continued to help curate the series each year. https://crsny.org/crossing-boundaries-concert-series/
Crossing Boundaries is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by LMCC. LMCC empowers artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support, to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Manhattan and beyond.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Guggenheim Fellow, USA Fellow, Doris Duke Artist, multilingual multidisciplinary artist Jen Shyu is “one of the most creative vocalists in contemporary improvised music” (The Nation). Born in Peoria, Illinois to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrants, she’s produced eight albums available on her record label Autumn Geese Records on Bandcamp. She’s performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Theater of Korea, Rubin Museum, was named Downbeat’s 2017 Rising Star Female Vocalist, and is a Fulbright scholar speaking 10 languages. She’s worked with such musical innovators as Sumi Tonooka, Terri Lyne Carrington, Nicole Mitchell, Val Jeanty, Ikue Mori, Linda May Han Oh, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Dresser, Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, Kenny Barron, Reggie Workman, Bill Frisell, and Immanuel Wilkins. Her “Song of Silver Geese” was among The New York Times’ “Best Albums of 2017.” She’s currently touring her third solo production “Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses” (commissioned by John Zorn) across all 50 states and has received wide critical acclaim for her latest album of the same name, with “When I Have Power” NPR’s “Best Songs of 2021.” She is a Paul Simon Music Fellows Guest Artist, a Steinway Artist and co-founder with Sara Serpa of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians). @jenshyu
Sumi Tonooka has been called a “fierce, fascinating composer pianist” Jazz Times “provocative and compelling” New York Times. With fifteen recordings to her name and a vast catalogue of compositions and award winning works in genres symphonic, chamber, dance and film, she continues to be a creative force. Recently, Tonooka was a winning finalist for the Emerging Black Composers Project to compose her fourth symphony, Only The Midnight Sky and Silent Stars premiered by the San Francisco Conservatory in February 2023. She is also a 2021 recipient of the Doris Duke, Creative Inflections Grant, with vocalist/composer Jen Shyu, for In The Green Room, inspired by the stories of Asian and African American women in Jazz. She was awarded the Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grant in 2019, premiering later this year for her trio plus Alchemy Sound Project, a composers collective that she started in 2015. @sumitonooka
Val Jeanty, also known as Val-Inc, is a Haitian electronic music composer, drummer/turntablist, and professor at Berklee College of Music. Jeanty is a pioneer of the electronic music sub-genre called Afro-Electronica (also called “Vodou-Electro”), incorporating Haitian Folkloric Culture with digital instrumentations. She uses technology to lead listeners into her dream-like expressionism of Afro-Electronica Soundscapes. Jeanty’s performances include The Whitney Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and internationally at The Venice Biennale, Saalfelden in Austria, and Haus der Kulturen in Berlin. She is the recipient of various grants including the Van Lier Fellow in 2018, New York State Council of the Arts/ New Music USA in 2019, and the Toulmin Fellowship in 2022. @valjeanty
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.