Jin Hi Kim composes to bridge cultural devides

By Rita A. Widiadana

JAKARTA (JP): Every culture or ethnic group has different ways of expressing itself, but a universal expression throughout all societies is music, or so believes Korean-American composer Jin Hi Kim.

Jin, who along with members of the American-based No World Improvisations multicultural ensemble, mesmerized Indonesian music lovers during two performances at the Art Summit Indonesia last week. She said that music was a potent means to bridge cultural, social, economic and political differences among nations throughout the world.

"In politics, people tend to see differences, while in music we always seek harmony and similarities. Politicians should learn from musicians about how to create a more peaceful and harmonious world," stressed the 41-year-old composer.

Born in Korea in l957, Jin is one of Asia's female composers who has gained a strong foothold and a respected place in the male-dominated international contemporary music world. She, currently resides in the United States and is considered worldwide as one of the leading voices of the New Generation of the East.

After graduating in Korean classical music from the prestigious Seoul National University in South Korea, Jin became one of the rare female komungo players in South Korea.

The Komungo is the oldest known instrument in Korean culture, dating back to 37 BC. Its history is deeply embedded in a once- strict Confucian society. Male Confucian scholars used the Komungo as a device to assist meditation and its sounds were never heard beyond the walls of royal courts.

Women were only allowed to play the instrument when the number of competent male players began to dwindle alarmingly.

"At that time, the government gave Korean women the opportunity to learn to play the komungo in an effort to preserve this musical tradition," Jin said before a rehearsal at the Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center here recently.

She said that most of her female peers quit after studying traditional Korean music and married to raise families. A few went on to teach music in South Korea.

But for Jin, although learning Korean classical music and mastering the Komungo was an education she valued highly, it was not enough. She wanted to learn more and create something new with the ancient instrument.

In l980, Jin continued her study in the United States, taking Western music at the San Francisco Conservatory for Music and later received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Mills College of Music.

"When I arrived in the United States, my first obsession was to find common ground between Korean or other Asian musical traditions and those of the West," the soft-spoken Jin stressed.

She pointed out that the integration of Asian and Western musical traditions was developing through the many Asians being trained in the West.

"We (Asian artists) would like to see a greater awareness of Asian music practiced by our Western counterparts," she argued.

She also found a quite discriminative attitude in the West toward Asian composers, and Asian women composers in particular.

"When I asked to join an international women's composers group, I was startled to find that no Asian, African or Latin American was in the association, " Jin remembered.

She described the history of Asian musical traditions in which women were prolific as both performers and composers.

"I know a number of distinguished female composers from China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, and Africa," she said.

Jin found America a haven for artists from different ethnic cultures who wanted to pursue international musical careers.

"In America, it is common to see different faces. There are Western, native Indian, American-African, and Asian people living together in such a multicultural society."

In this environment, she added, the emergence of cultures introduced by immigrants becomes a tool for refining their sensitivity to differences.

"There, I met and worked with artists from Japan, India, Indonesia, Australia and various African countries in addition to Western musicians," Jin maintained.

In these collaborations, Jin used the komungo as a vehicle for the most cutting-edge music in performances with jazz musicians, computer musicians, contemporary classical musicians, string quartets and others in the experimental field.

"My group (No World Improvisations) consists of four people from different cultural backgrounds. Yet, we try to create unified musical pieces that fuse elements from various cultures," she said.

No World Improvisations involves American composer Joseph Celli, Senegalese percussionist Mor Thiam, Chinese pipa player Min Xiao-Fen and Jin.

Such collaboration, Jin added, will enable people with diverse social and cultural histories to work together in the global society.

Jin has been involved in various projects with leading Western improvisers such as Elliot Sharp, Henry Kaiser, James Newton, Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne and William Parker.

Among her best compositions are X4 For Solo Violin (l985), X5 For Solo Flute (1985), Linking (l986) String Quartet, Piri Quartet (l993), Voices for Sigimse (l996), Dragon Bond Rite (l997), a mask and music theatrical production.

She also developed a close relation with Asian artists involved in one of her music theater compositions, Dragon Bond Rite, which was world premiered in New York and then moved to Washington in June l997. It was later performed in a number of European, Asian, African Latin American countries, Australia and Canada.

Dragon Bond Rite incorporates a cast of mask dancers, percussionists and vocalists hand-picked by Jin during her travels around Asia.

To perfect it, she collaborated with artists from Japan, Korea, Tuva, India and Indonesia (Balinese mask dancer I Ketut Rina, Kendang drummer I Gede Putu Winartha, and dalang singer I Wayan Sira.

"You can take a raw melody from another tradition and analyze it and recreate it in their own terms. Then you have to orchestrate the piece by layering the individual instrumental and vocal styles," she said.

Her composition is a broad compendium of regional styles from all over Asia and all the musicians are star performers in their respective traditions.

"It was like nothing I'd ever seen in Korea or India, or Indonesia," she says. "I didn't understand any of the words, but I was mesmerized by the musical energy," she said about the Dragon Bond Rite.

Many Western composers and musicians are still reluctant to work with Asian or other ethnic artists because they are afraid they cannot produce a similar musical conceptual frame, Jin noted.

"For me, the energy produced from different musical instruments is much more important than creating similar sounds and tones."

Jin expects to collaborate with a number of female Indonesian composers in the coming International Women's Composers Festival in the United States next year.

She also added that artists should have mutual respect for each other and a sense of solidarity before they can work together.

"Music not only deals with instruments but also with the people who play them. We have to share our feelings and minds before we can create good music," Jin said.

According to Jin, the best music in the world is that which comes from the artists' hearts and genuine feelings.