Bio

Described as “beautiful, ethereal and heartfelt” (Kapravola Society Journal), Jung Sun Kang’s music seeks a balance between wild imaginations from many different cultures and a firm belief in classical music’s structural tradition. Jung Sun has received awards from Wildacres, PlySpace, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Willapa Bay, New York Council on the Arts, New Music USA, British Harpsichord Society, as well as Leonard Bernstein Fellowship from Tanglewood Music Center. Her music is recorded on the ArtistShare, Centaur, Delos, University of Chicago and Prima Facie labels. Jung Sun was born in Daegu, South Korea. A permanent resident of United States, she makes New York City her home.

Project

My new work will consist of a collection of transcriptions of the various accents from the immigrants. Historically, the accents of the immigrants, especially who are from marginalized society, are ridiculed and humiliated. The stories of and narratives of these accents as told through classical music’s powerful motivic ideas, however, can be positioned to highlight and elevate the beauty of each accent.

My deep interest in the intimately handmade motive stems from my background in training in structures of European classical music. The scope of marrying my background and my experience as an immigrant with an accent is refreshingly powerful for me, opening up a wealth of metaphors for how methods of fabrication can come to intersect and inform each other. Instead of being in contrast to one another, I seek to merge these modes of writing in order to not forget the history of classical music, interjecting these ideas into a contemporary dialogue.