Join us as we welcome celebrated Korean musician gamin and her fusion-traditional music ensemble PAN Project for the 4th Showcase of the OnStage Korea 2017 Season, which celebrates outstanding Korean performing arts across the DC region. PAN Project fuses rousing folk music of Korea, China, and Japan to create an unforgettable multicultural experience, including the DC premiers of improvisational world music pieces Prism, Sugung-ga, Arirang, and Xisanggi.

The Korean word pan taken from the name of the Korean narrative music tradition pansori means to gather or come together (sori meaning song). PAN Project embodies this idea in their desire to gather the traditions of East Asia into one ensemble and draw on the intercultural relationships between Chinese, Korean, and Japanese music traditions, while expanding the scope of music from these origins. PAN Project tells stories through music and performance: from creations that draw on the rich intercultural music traditions of East Asian instrumental performance, ritual and theater, to modern influences, drawing on improvisation, Western composition, and multi-media technology. Through their music, PAN Project hopes to explore the creative nature of collaboration across cultures and bring together both history and the modern day into one intercultural, holistic expression.

PAN Project explores and engages audiences with intercultural history by connecting it with the present day. Their repertoire encompasses Korean, Japanese, and Chinese traditions, including works performed on both original instruments and arrangements for mixed cultural instruments, as well as blending modern composition with traditional East Asian musical language. PAN Project’s performances also incorporate electronic new media, to help connect the music with separate but closely-related art forms like ink brush landscape painting, calligraphy, and poetry, across national traditions. Through the use of sensor-controlled audio and video, allowing performers to manipulate and interact with these new media forms during the performance, different cultures and artistic practices can be integrated like never before. For more on PAN Project, visit our event website here.

gamin | Korean piri, saenghwang, taepyeongso

Kaoru Watanabe | Japanese Shinobue and Nohkan flutes, Taiko Drums
Jeff Roberts | Chinese Guqin, New Media
Woonjung Sim | Korean Janggu, Buk
Ying-chieh Wang | Chinese Erhu