News:
To the Max!
Max Roach Unlimited
By Jon Jang
In his own words, the great artist and humanitarian Max Roach has
gone "to the great hunting ground in the sky." Since 1989, Max and
I have shared some "bright moments" as artists and friends. In his
convincing manner of tone, Max always reminded me," Jon, we are making
history."
Click here to read more...
Grant Awards
Jon Jang was awarded a:
-
SFAC's Individial Artist Commission to compose Unbound Voices - A Musical Tribute to Alice Fong Yu
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Creative Work Fund grant to collaborate with Michael Morgan and the Oakland East Bay Symphony.
as well as a
Upcoming Events:
The Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra has launched California Compositions, an ambitious multi-year project to celebrate the states greatest achievers in the arts and other fields by commissioning new works of music in their honor and premiering them in the Sacramento area.
The first of these commissioned works is by composer Andr Previn. It honors internationally-acclaimed Sacramento painter Wayne Thiebaud and will premiere on October 14, 2006 at the Sacramento Community Center Theater. The second project, Gold Mountain, a tribute to the Chinese, will feature new works by Jon Jang and Gang Situ, January and April 28 of 2007, respectively.
Future projects will honor the accomplishments of specific ethnic groups in the state, using these new works to generate community dialogue regarding diversity, as well as common themes of humanity.
Articles
Music
review: 'Symphony' hits the mark
By Edward Ortiz - Bee Arts Critic
April 30, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/124/story/163395.html
Some works are so descriptive and thematic they can't help but be thought of as program music.
Jon Jang's vivid one-movement work "Chinese American Symphony" is one of those. That was clearly evident in the Sacramento Philharmonic's performance of the work Saturday at the Community Center Theater. It was the highlight of a deceptively scattershot program that included Sibelius's Symphony No. 7, Ottorino Respighi's "Pines of Rome" and Brahms's "Tragic Overture."
Jang's work begins with the slow rhythmic strike of an anvil, and 20 minutes later ends with a haunting variant of the same. The anvil strike is a sonic signifier of spikes driven into the ground by Chinese immigrants during the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
"Symphony" is highly evocative music that clearly hits the musical mark of what the Philharmonic's groundbreaking Gold Mountain commission project set out to achieve.
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Jon
Jang: Echoes of history
By Edward Ortiz - Bee Arts Critic
From Sacramento
Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/124/story/158162.html
The sound of a hammer striking an anvil is what ends the musical journey of Jon Jang's "Chinese American Symphony."
It's the sound that resonated across the valleys, peaks and tunnels of the Sierra in the 1860s, when Chinese immigrants laid miles of track from sunrise to sunset during the building of the transcontinental railroad.
"The ending of this symphony is very spiritual," said Jang.
Click Me!
That's because Jang, who is a descendant of Chinese immigrants, sees the ending of the work as a sonic symbol of the beginning of the Chinese American immigrant experience in California.
It's a beginning of sorts for Jang, too. [click here to read more]
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Jon Jang melds his music and his history for a 'naturalized,'
timely jazz groove
from the San
Francisco Chronicle
Chinatown was destroyed along with much of San Francisco in the earthquake
and fire of 1906. But because this was a time of severe discrimination
against Chinese and Chinese Americans -- the Chinese Exclusion Act
of 1882 barred Chinese from entering the country because they were
deemed a threat to U.S. workers -- San Francisco politicians had different
plans for Chinatown.
In telling this story, local pianist and composer Jon Jang quotes from one of the many books he owns about the Chinese experience in the United States: "Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943: A Trans-Pacific Community," by Yong Chen (Stanford University Press).
"The earthquake did not bury anti-Chinese sentiments," Chen says in the book. "Numerous newspaper reports of the Relief Committee's serious discriminatory practices prompted President Roosevelt to inquire into the situation. Acts of violence against the Chinese persisted as well. In one incident a Chinese who went back to his former residence on Sacramento Street was stoned to death 'by Western rascals.' (reported in The Chinese-Western Daily).
"Just a few days after the quake, San Francisco Mayor E.E. Schmitz promptly told the police chief that all Chinese should be placed at Hunter's Point on the southern end of the city."
It was only the Chinese Empress Dowager's influence and cash contributions
that persuaded the mayor to rebuild Chinatown where it was, Chen reports.
more
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(from the San Francisco Bay Guardian - 8 Days a Week June 1-8)
From the ashes Composer and pianist Jon Jang has played a groundbreaking
collision of Asian and western music since his emergence in the 1980s.
His new piece, Sweet Whisper of a Flower, is a suite of compositions
commissioned by the East Bay Community Foundation and the EastSide
Arts Alliance to commemorate the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and
resultant founding of Oakland's Chinatown. In the piece Jang recontextualizes
Chinese folk melodies with settings that, as he puts it, look Chinese
but don't act Chinese. His group, the Jon Jang Seven, performs the
work in progress about musical, generational, and cultural regeneration
during the "Jazz at Intersection" summer series. Notable musicians
in the ensemble include tenor saxophonist Francis Wong and trombonist
Wayne Wallace, who also serves as music director. 8 p.m., Intersection
for the Arts, 446 Valencia, S.F. $12-$15. (415) 626-3311, www.theintersection.org.
(Fong)