 Jon
Jang has followed his own path of creating music which has
become "two flowers on a stem," a metaphor expressing
the symbiotic relationship of his cultural identity and
musical aesthetics as an American born Chinese. During the
past twenty-five years, Jon Jang’s works chronicles
and brings to life the Chinese immigration experience in
the United States. His works also pays homage to the legacy
of African American music and social justice. The Ford Foundation
in New York recently selected Jang as one of five mid-career
artists to receive a Visionary Artist award for his contributions
On April 28, 2007, Jon Jang’s Chinese American Symphony
premiered in Sacramento. Commissioned by the Sacramento
Philharmonic Orchestra and the Oakland East Bay Symphony,
the work pays tribute to the Chinese who built the first
transcontinental railroad in United States. Jon Jang gives
a musical voice to a history that has been silent. Unbound
Chinatown –A Musical Tribute to Alice Fong Yu gave
its world premiere at the 25th San Francisco Jazz Festival.
Jon Jang gives a musical voice to a history that has been
silent. His other works include Paper Son, Paper Songs,
Island: the Immigrant Suite No. 2 for the Kronos Quartet
and Cantonese Opera singer, Tiananmen!, Reparations Now!
For Jazz Orchestra and Taiko, to name a few. Jang also composed
the score for the dramatic adaptation of Maxine Hong Kingston’s
The Women Warrior. Commissioned by the Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, the work was also staged at Huntington Theatre
in Boston and the Center Theatre Group of Los Angeles.
In June 2000, Jon Jang and James Newton composed and performed
When Sorrow Turns to Joy – a Musical Tribute to Paul
Robeson that was commissioned by the Cal Performances and
the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. At a performance at
Dartmouth College in 2003, Paul Robeson Jr. gave his highest
praise for the work. The last performance was in Paris in
April 2004 to commemorate the anniversary of Paul Robeson’s
famous speech at the World Peace Conference in 1949.
In 1989, Jon proposed the idea to reconceptualize the National
Anthem to Max Roach. As a result, SenseUs –Rainbow
AnthemS premiered at Davies Symphony Hall in 1990 featuring
Max Roach, Jon Jang, John Santos, Sonia Sanchez, Victor
Hernandez Cruz and Genny Lim.
In 1995, Jon and Dr. Billy Taylor curate Crossover series
at the Asia Society of New York exploring the relationship
between African American music and Chinese music in a one
week filled with performances and residency activities.
Jang has recorded with Max Roach, James Newton, David Murray
and Maxine Hong Kingston. His ensembles have toured at major
concert halls and music festivals in Europe, Canada, China
and the United States. Jon was the first musician from San
Francisco to perform at the Arts Alive Festival in South
Africa in 1994, four months after the election to end apartheid.
Before Max Roach’s retirement in 2003, Jon toured
with him as part of a trio in Zurich, Berlin, Milan, and
the Royal Festival Hall in London in 2001.
Jon dropped out of University of California at Berkeley
and began piano at the age of 19. Working as a busboy and
a gardener, Jon raised enough money to buy his first piano
at age 20. With only one and half years of study, he flew
to New York to audition to various music schools and was
accepted to all of them. He chose the Oberlin Conservatory
of Music because of it fine reputation as a music school
and liberal arts college. He was also awarded a full scholarship.
After three years of study at Oberlin, Jon Jang received
a B.Mus. degree in piano performance.
Jon Jang lives in the San Francisco Nob Hill area near
Chinatown with his wife Joyce and daughter Mika, who is
in her seventh year at Alice Fong Yu Alternative Elementary
and Middle School, the first public Chinese language immersion
school in the country named after the first Chinese American
school teacher in San Francisco. Jon was a Visiting Fellow
at the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University,
as well as a visiting lecturer at UC Berkeley and UC Irvine.
He is featured as a composer and public intellectual in
Deborah Wong’s book, Speak It Louder – Asian
Americans Making Music published by Routledge of New York
and London. |
