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Event news: K-music 2017 — Hyelim Kim + Alice Zawadzki, 2 Oct

A major theme running through this year’s K-music festival is that of collaboration between Korean and Western musicians. Hyelim Kim has been collaborating across genres for many years, most recently at Club Inegales. Her collaboration with vocalist / violinist Alice Zawadzki in the intimate Vortex venue should be special. They gave us a preview of what to expect at the K-music launch event at the KCC on 19 July.

Hyelim + Alice

Hyelim Kim & Alice Zawadzki

Monday 2 October 2017, 8:45pm
Vortex Jazz Club | 11 Gillett Square | London N16 8AZ | www.vortexjazz.co.uk
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The K-Music festival has been proud to commission some major collaborations, and this one is really special. Hyelim Kim, a superb taegum (bamboo flute) player, has played with Nils Frahm and Lubomyr Melnyk, literally breathing new life into Korean traditional music, and she has reached out to singer Alice Zawadzki to join her in this partnership.

Jamie Cullum called Alice ‘beautiful and uncategorisable – a real force to be reckoned with’, and her dramatic voice, warm humour and creative enthusiasm have left critics comparing her to Bjork and Tori Amos. Together, they chose guitarist Rob Luft and bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado to create a real band of titans for this one special performance.

Hyelim Kim

Hyelim Kim

Daegeum performer, composer and researcher, Hyelim Kim, is opening new possibilities for Korean music by using a traditional Korean instrument, the daegeum, as a tool to promote exchange with a wide-variety of musical cultures. Kim obtained her undergraduate and masters degrees from Seoul National University, and as a current Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at SOAS within the University of London, she is conducting research on the globalization of Korean music.

Kim is now receiving attention as a young performer who is taking a lead role in breathing new life into Korean traditional music. She has been selected as the pioneering artist of 2009-2010 by the Korean Arts Council; was a performer at the New York Omi Residency in 2009; and was selected as the Kumho Young Artist for 2006. She has held performances overseas including three recitals and performances at the 2High Festival (Australia), the Omi World Music Concert (New York), the Sori Art Electroacoustic Concert (Australia), the NZEMS (New Zealand), Ethno Sweden (Sweden),Fest der Innenhöfe (Germany) and the World Classics (England). These performances provided audiences with the opportunity to experience Kim’s own musical compositions, and she is presently working to expand her performances to an even greater audience worldwide.

Alice Zawadzki

Alice Zawadzki

Alice Zawadzki is a vocalist, violinist, songwriter and composer based in London. Her work as a performer, collaborator, composer and speaker, has seen her gain considerable repute as a distinctive and individual presence on the creative European music scene.

Anglo-Polish Alice’s rich musical background and ‘whimsical hyper-creativity’ (MOJO Magazine) converge into artistry which draws upon her early exposure to New Orleans jazz and gospel with the legendary Lilian Boutté, an extensive classical training as a violinist, and a continuous exploration of improvisation, poetry, and folk music from diverse traditions, “all propelled in a voice of velvet suppleness and gutsy emotional power” (The Arts Desk). She performs extensively as both a soloist and as a collaborator, with headline performances at most of the major UK alternative and jazz venues and festivals, including the Royal Albert Hall, Ronnie Scott’s, the London Jazz Festival, the Vortex, Celtic Connections, and internationally at festivals from Taipei International Jazz Festival (Taiwan) to Coventry Calling (Massachusetts, USA) to Sűdtirol Jazz Festival (Italy), and more. She also performs and collaborates at underground venues in the London scene and on unexpected platforms, with a keenness to nourish music at its roots.

Links:

(automatically generated) Read LKL’s review of this event here.

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