Jin Hi Kim is an internationally acclaimed innovative komungo (Korean
4th century fretted board zither) virtuoso and a Guggenheim Fellow in Music
Composition. Kim has performed as a komungo soloist in her own compositions at
Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art,
Asia Society (NYC), Royal Festival Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt
(Berlin) and around the world. Kim was featured on PRI’s The World, Voice of America
and BBC-Global Hit in recognition of her works that lead to a new direction
incorporating a profound Asian cultural heritage with a balance of Eastern and
Western aesthetics. She has received commissions from the American Composers
Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and many others.
Kim also focused on working with advanced interactive technology interfaced with
Asian traditional instruments. Kim’s widely acclaimed 60 minutes Digital Buddha, for
Komungo/Electric Komungo with video mandala and digital images of extraordinary
juxtapositions, fast cut swirling images of a deconstructed electric komungo, was
performed at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Expo Zaragoza (Spain), Festival Salihara
(Indonesia) and many other places. Kim’s Touching The Moons, a 70 minutes
multi-media lunar ritual, in which the electric komungo, Indian tabla, Korean kagok
singer, and Indian kathak dancer were processed live with a computer-controlled MIDI
systems and sensors resulting in interactive digital animation, won the Wolff
Ebermann Prize at the International Theater Institute (Germany). The work was
commissioned by The Kitchen (New York) with workshops at MassMoca and presentation
at the Kennedy Center. Kim’s autobiography Komungo Tango was published in Seoul,
Korea. A retrospective interview about Kim’s major works was archived in Oral
History of American Music at Yale University Library. An interview about her
electric komungo was featured on MBC-TV in conjunction with Korean Traditional Craft
Exhibition 2007 at United Nations.
