Virtual Recital Series, Episode 2

Here is our second episode of the Virtual Recital Series. We have some fun stuff going on at the end so make sure to watch the last 6 minutes!

You can read the artist bio and the program at www.virtualrecital.org

Our first Virtual Recital!

You can watch our first Virtual Recital here. For artist bios, please click here.

Announcing Hannah and Friends: Virtual Recital Series

I had this idea swimming in my head about using the Hangouts feature on Google+ to share music with a greater number of audience. The Google Hangouts feature is a video chat that allows up to 10 people to chat together. Google recently came out with a "studio mode" for musicians to share music online. Even though only a limited number of people can be in this chat, the performances can be streamed live to Youtube and is automatically recorded for later view.

So I am in the process of launching a project called Hannah and Friends: Virtual Recital Series. Every Saturday, I will be singing and inviting my performing artist friends from all over the US and other parts of the world to come to this cyber space to share their talents with you. The genres will include (but not limited to) western and eastern classical, crossovers, jazz, pop, indie, comedy, theater, folk, and other types of world music. We will be sharing the Youtube video on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social media sites to reach as many viewers as possible. Audiences and communities have become very insular to their niche and I wanted to create a platform where people can discover something new. It is my hope that this project will also provide opportunities for different types of artists to come together to create an online and offline community that unites all races, cultures, and people of various socio-economic backgrounds.

The launch date for this project is Saturday, April 4 at 3pm pst. I have some amazingly talented friends who will be performing so you don't want to miss out! The website for this project is almost complete and I will be posting it on here and everywhere when it's done. You can preview the profiles of the artists there.

More than anything, I am really excited to share the talents of my ridiculously gifted friends. I think you will really enjoy watching! Stay tuned!

How I am going to get rich and famous

It is always with guilt that I make my come-back after a long, unannounced hiatus. I do this with my journal, too, even though no one is reading the entries except me. With whopping 16 people following my blog (I am not being sarcastic. I really appreciate my followers. Without you, this blog would be voiceless), you can imagine the magnified guilt. But I am sure you weren't losing sleep over my unannounced absence except for maybe guitarsophist. (Maybe we should be Facebook friends so you know I am alive.) 

Anyway, some of you know from my Facebook status that I left Seattle for good. My life in Seattle was stressful, enlightening, educational, fun, and eye-opening. First of all, the study of ethnomusicology is really cool. (For those of you who are just tuning in my life, I enrolled in the ethnomusicology graduate program at University of Washington with the intent of getting a Ph.D.) I learned a lot and if you are interested in world music and academia sandwiched in one, I highly recommend you look into it. However, I decided to leave the program because I realized I wasn't on the path to living the life of my dreams. When I imagine my dream life, I am on stage performing. I am not reading and writing and trying get published. This realization was spurred on by meeting a hot musician who was living the life of his dreams performing all over the world. And I was like, why am I not doing that? It hit me like a ton of bricks. (Also, I was inspired by a graffiti scribbled on a bathroom door that said, "I aimed for the moon and returned with a pocket full of stars" or something like that.) So, a couple of weeks later I told the head of the department that I was leaving the program to pursue a performing career. She was surprised but gave me her blessing and said I could come back to the program if I so desired in the future. I said thanks, packed my bags and left.

So, how am I going to go about having a performing career, you may wonder especially if you are one of my hundreds of musician friends. Well, I wondered that, too. But I have been brainstorming for about three weeks now and here is what I have. The music I am going to make will be a fusion of pop, classical, and Korean traditional music. Still not sure what market segment I want to target but I decided to let that take care of itself by exposing it on the Internet. So, here is the plan: Write a song fusing all those elements, find musicians to collaborate with, make a recording and a music video. Enlist the help of my friends on Facebook (and that would be you, my dears) to make it go viral online. Link the music video to the Kickstarter fundraiser and raise enough money for a whole album and a concert. My goal is to have the music video circulate and go viral online by the end of the year. Which means it has to be good. Really good. And I am confident that it's going to be good. :)

I also have another project that some of you know about. It's an opera about the story of my grandmother told from my perspective as a Korean-American that I've been wanting to write for a long time. I found a composer and a historian/ethnomusicologist to collaborate with. I also have a conceptual artist in mind who might be interested in doing multi-media stage work. So, I will be doing a lot of research and interviewing my family members over the summer to write the libretto for this work. I am really excited about it. There is a lot that needs to be done for this project like finding funding but if the work is good, we may be able to get the Korean government behind it.

The sad tale of a starving artist is that even with all these grand plans, I still need to have a day job. So, I am planning on applying to community colleges to teach piano, voice, and/or music history and start a piano/voice studio.

So, that's the plan. And I am really excited about it!

The destination for my next adventure: Seattle, Washington!

The year 2011 has been a challenging one for me in many aspects. But one of the most stressful parts about it was not knowing where I would end up after summer. Since graduating from high school, I have never lived in one city for more than two and a half years. I have been bouncing around from city to city, and country to country. So, one may think I would be used to this way of living and comfortable with uncertainty. Well, not exactly. Up until this week, I didn't know where I was going to end up after this summer. Not knowing where I am going to be and having my life up in the air is a very unsettling feeling. But after a long wait, I am excited to announce that I will be moving to Seattle, Washington to study ethnomusicology at the University of Washington. And I will be there for at least 5 years! Yay!!!!!

A few of my friends are already there right now, so I won't lack for company and I am sure I will make awesome new friends. Jacob, who is studying sociology there, sent me some breath-taking photos of the campus and the music building to get me even more excited to come. :) UW has the best program in my field of study in the west coast so I am thrilled to be studying there. And here are some pictures!



Students playing on the quad



Korean traditional musicians playing kayakeum



The music building



The library







Doesn't this look like heaven? I am sooooooo excited!!!!!!! :)

My Dream

"What do you really want to do with your life?" was the question I would often get when I expressed my confusion and frustration in graduate school studying classical voice. But I always hesitated to give them a full account of what I had in mind in fear of getting a response like, "Who do you think you are?" or "That would be such a waste of time. Give it up and start doing something more practical." But since about a year ago, I started to make more tangible connections between my dream and ways to accomplish it. And even though I still get raised-eyebrows of disapproval or skepticism from my relatives, I stand immovable in believing that I will achieve my dream. You may even call it destiny.

I have always known that I would lead an artistic life. But it took long, and tortuous detours for my amorphous wishes to finally crystallize into something definite and tangible. There were lots of disappointment, discouragement, tears, resentment, and doubt that accompanied this process and I am pretty sure they will come back to haunt me in the future. Regardless, I feel a sense of surety that this is my destiny, my offering to the alter of that Being whom I call God.

And this is my dream.

I will create, produce and perform works that give breath and life to forgotten history, especially the unrecognized and silenced voice of Korean women. To do that, I am going back to school to study ethnomusicology. I feel indebted to the Korean women of the past, especially my grandmothers, and I want to pay homage to those who paid the price for the privileges and freedom I enjoy today. I want to tell the stories of their quiet resilience and courage of their human spirit. In so doing, I want all of us to dig deep into the roots of our humanity to discover our common vulnerability and understand that with courage and love we can overcome our personal and national tragedies. I want people to feel that we are all the same, that we belong to the same human family however brief the thought may last.

I know this sounds lofty and idealistic but somewhere deep inside my core, I know I will do this. I just know I will.

Harvard

I think Harvard department of music has made its decision. I got an email from them tonight asking for my postal code. I was at Heather Willoughby's house when I got this email and started speculating my rejection and why I got rejected and why it's their loss and why they should reconsider. And then Heather, my voice of reason, reminded me that all they wanted was my postal code, not to give me a rejection letter. Or so we hoped. I probably won't go even if I get accepted but it won't feel good to be rejected by such a smart school. So, everyone, let's cross some serious yoga fingers.

The Fortuneteller Tells

So, I went to go get my fortune read again because I was so curious about where I would end up next year. My co-workers and I went to this famous fortuneteller after work. I applied to Columbia, Harvard, UCLA and University of Washington. He said I will be rejected by Columbia and University of Washington; have 50% chance of getting into Harvard; and will be accepted by UCLA with open arms. Well, I was just glad he didn't say I will be rejected by Harvard. At least there is some hope.

He also said that I will tempt or be tempted by a man in June (right before I leave Korea! Amazing timing, Life!). That seems like the highlight of my new year other than the fact that I will be starting school again. (I am soooo excited about that!)The fortuneteller also warned me that if I don't get married by 2016 or 2017, it would truly suck because I would probably have a very difficult time finding someone. All the fortunetellers I've talked to always tell me how hard it would be for me to find a man like I need reminding. (Oh yeah? Really? Tell me about it.)

So, there it is. If the fortuneteller is right, I'll end up in Los Angeles with a "Will Work For Marriage" sign by the freeway exit. I will see you there.

Seoul National University

I am auditing the History of Korean Music at Seoul National University. I emailed the professor who is teaching the class to get permission and she emailed back and told me to read the text book as much as I could before class started. So, I got the book yesterday and started my first academic reading in Korean. Between the state of wakefulness and sleep, I understood maybe 30% of what I read. I was so frustrated!!! I will have to become best friends with the Korean-English dictionary.

So, today was the first day of class. I felt a little out of place because most people knew each other and were chatting away about their vacation in Japan, their new plastic surgery, their recent mole removal, their BFs and stuff. I was told that college students in Korea really dress up to go to school and it's true! Most of them were wearing heels. I am not sure if I can bring myself to assimilate to that kind of fashion culture. Maybe if there were hot guys but there were all girls including the professor. Plus even if there were guys, I would be about 10 years older than them. Anyway, while I was surveying the general atmosphere and dynamics among students, Dr. Kwon came in and passed out the syllabus and explained the course and ended the class early. It wasn't all that eventful but I was a little worried about all the stuff I didn't know. I talked to Dr. Kwon after class and she said she'll introduce me to people who are studying ethnomusicology so I wouldn't feel so lost. I was relieved that she was so nice. Lecture starts next week. Wish me luck!