$15 at the door

9pm doors/9:30 showtime

21+

This night will also feature solo sets from

Jonah Parzen-Johnson (nyc) baritone saxophone and synthesizer

Paul Metzger

**Jen Shyu’s Solo Rites: Seven Breaths directed by Garin Nugroho**

Jen Shyu: Composition, vocals, dance, Taiwanese moon lute, piano, gayageum

Garin Nugroho: Director

Danang Pamungkas: Choreographer

Kristen Robinson: Set and Props Designer

Ayu Ghia Sugandhi & Kristin Isola: Costume Designers

Solomon Weisbard: Original Lighting Designer

With “songs that could remind you of ancient court music or Joni Mitchell” (NY Times), Jen Shyu invites you to join her for a musical pilgrimage through Taiwan, East Timor, Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Korea. In a solo music drama, directed by renowned Indonesian filmmaker Garin Nugroho, this American-East Timorese-Taiwanese artist employs lutes, zithers, poetry, and dance to reveal “how beautifully and generously she uses sound” (NY Times). The 2014 premiere of Solo Rites: Seven Breathswas commissioned by Roulette Intermedium with funds from the Jerome Foundation.

NPR “Fresh Air” Review, October 5, 2015 – by Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead. Listen to the NPR Review!

Jen Shyu is currently featured in The New York Times. Read the article

“… a remarkable phenomenon, shifting register with startling ease and tonal resourcefulness …” – John Fordham, The Guardian

“… among New York’s most invigorating vocal presences. And perhaps the most enigmatic.” – Larry Blumenfeld, The Wall Street Journal

Jen Shyu bio:

Born from Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrant parents, 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award recipient Jen Shyu is an experimental jazz vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, producer, and Fulbright scholar. Known mostly for her virtuosic singing with saxophonist and 2014 MacArthur Genius Fellow Steve Coleman since 2003 and performing her own music around the world in such venues as Carnegie Hall (2016), Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Asia Society, Roulette, Blue Note, Bimhuis, Salihara Theater, National Gugak Center, and National Theater of Korea, Shyu has collaborated with innovators Anthony Braxton, Bobby Previte, Chris Potter, Michael Formanek, and David Binney to name a few. A Stanford University graduate in opera, ballet dancer, and already having played piano concertos with symphony orchestras by the age of 13, she has also studied traditional music and dance in Cuba, Brazil, China, South Korea, East Timor, and Indonesia, extensive research which last year culminated into Solo Rites: Seven Breaths, directed by renowned Indonesian filmmaker Garin Nugroho. Shyu has won commissions and support from the Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works, New Music USA, Jazz Gallery, and Roulette, as well as fellowships from Asian Cultural Council, Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Korean Ministry of Sports, Culture, and Tourism. She is currently based in the Bronx, touring with her ensemble Jade Tongue and performing Solo Rites: Seven Breaths in the US and abroad. She has produced six albums as a leader, including Synastry (Pi 2011) with bassist Mark Dresser and most recently Sounds and Cries of the World (Pi 2015), which Ben Ratliff of the NY Times calls her "latest and best album" as well as calling her concerts "the most arresting performances I’ve seen over the past five years. It’s not just the meticulous preparation of the work and the range of its reference, but its flexibility: She seems open, instinctual, almost fearless." Larry Blumenfeld writes in the Wall Street Journal, “Her voice, a wonder of technical control and unrestrained emotion, tells a story dotted with well-researched facts and wild poetic allusions. She claims both as her truths.” www.jenshyu.com, jenshyu.bandcamp.com