Kazue Sawai is a leader in contemporary Japanese music, bringing koto music to musicians and audiences that have never had the opportunity to fully experience the depth and breadth of the koto sound. She began studying the koto at the age of 8 under the legendary Michio Miyagi. Sawai is a graduate of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. In 1979 she and her husband established the Sawai Koto Institute, adopting a new and relatively unconventional approach to the promotion of koto music, touring across Japan and performing for anyone with an interest in the koto. These early touring performances included the "Triangle Music Tour" collaborations with composer Toshi Ichiyanagi and percussionist Sumire Yoshiwara. Sawai's album with Ayuo Takahashi, Hiromi Ohta, and Peter Hamill, along with concerts and recordings produced by the likes of Yuji Takahashi and John Zorn, attest to the muti-faceted approach she takes to her music.

Since 1989, beginning with New York's Bang on a Can Festival, Sawai has performed at various music festivals throughout Europe and the Americas with venues including Vienna, the Mels Jazz Festival, and the Paris City Theater. The Kazue Sawai Koto Ensemble travels extensively, and with approximately 10 international performances a year as part of its continuing world tour, the group can be found making performances on various diverse musical stages around the globe.

Sawai is also active with projects such as "Kazue Sawai 360 Degrees" and France's "Music Action," working with young artists of varying genres in seeking innovative experimental performance situations. Through these activities, she is opening doors for whole new groups who have never before had the opportunity to experience koto music. She has undertaken improvisational work with Indonesian dancer Sardon Kusmo, Korean shaman artist Kim Sokchul and renowned Russian composer Sophia Gubaidulina, leading to a CD collaboration and performances of the composer's works for koto. More recently, Sawai performed the Koto Concerto composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, conducted by Yutaka Sado at the Hyogo Performing Arts Centre in 2010.

Yuan Sha is known throughout China and around the globe as a true master of the gu-zheng, one of the most talented artists performing on the instrument today. She began learning to play the gu-zheng at a young age with the famous teacher Liu Miao, and at age nine entered the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she studied for many years and has taught as well. She has won several national and international gu-zheng competitions, and she has trained thousands of students on the instrument - giving concerts and academic courses in China and abroad - and publishing teaching materials and CDs.

She has performed many times with the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of China, Vienna Opera House Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic of Sweden. Many famous composers have written works for her - including Ye Xiaogang, Tan Dun, Gua Xia, and Tang Jiaping, and she has composed several works herself. Ever the ambassador for the gu-zheng, Yuan Sha has visited over thirty countries to teach and perform, and last year she led Central Conservatory of Music students on a grand tour of China, giving dozens of concerts for the promotion and popularization of the gu-zheng.

Aeri Ji received rigorous training in traditional gayageum performance starting from a very early age. She received her bachelor’s degree from Seoul National University and master’s degree and doctoral degree from Ewha Women’s University in gayageum performance. She studied with great gayageum masters Hwang Byung-Ju, Ji Mi-Ja, Lee Jae-Suk, and Hwang Byung-Ki, and has been a member of the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts (NCKTPA). Ms. Ji has appeared in numerous concerts all over Asia, Europe, Middle East and North and South America. She has been invited to give solo recitals at prestigious stages such as the Kennedy Center, Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, Henry Crown Hall in Jerusalem, and Asian Art Museum in San Francisco among others.

Aeri Ji’s mastery of traditional gayageum performance is internationally recognized. Her interest and deep understanding of contemporary music is displayed in her concert programs which features frequent premieres and performances of new works composed by contemporary Korean traditional music composers, as well as Korean and international composers of contemporary Western music. Ms. Ji believes in appreciation of traditional Korean gayageum repertoire side by side with new music, and her immaculate and sensitive execution of both repertoire prove her fervor for both. Ms. Ji mastered the entire sanjo piece (Sung Geum-Ryun School) and performed it in a solo recital in her 20’s. She also gave a premiere of the 70 minute-entire sanjo piece (Jung Nam-Hi / Hwang Byung-Ki School) in 1997. Since then, she has frequently performed the entire sanjo piece in Korea as well as abroad, including at the Alter und Neue Musik aus Korea in Berlin, Germany in 2004.

In recent years she has made appearances at major organizations such as The Opening Concert at the Asian Music Festival, Seoul (2002), Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scotland (2002), Pacific Rim Music Festival, USA (2003), Symposium for International Musicological Society, Australia (2004), Alter und Neue Musik aus Korea in Berlin, Germany (2004), 50th Anniversary Conference of Society for Ethnomusicology, USA (2005), April in Santa Cruz New Music Festival, USA (2006), The Opening Performance of The year long celebration commemorating 120 years of diplomatic ties between Korea and France at the Versailles Palace Opera Theatre, France (2006), In Celebration of the 45th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations Between Korea and Israel (2007), Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Center for Korean Studies (2009), the 2009 United Nations Climates Change Conference in Copenhagen(COP15)

Ji is taking an imaginative step in the new millennium in which the gayageum is no longer only a Korean instrument for Korean composers, but also an internationally-adapted world instrument for avant-garde composition. She is one of a few highly accomplished performers who can fluently elucidate Korean musical aesthetics and artistries-ranging from the most classical gayageum sanjo repertory to the latest musical innovations. Over the past few years, she has commissioned a number of distinguished national and international composers to write solo works for gayageum and presented them in public solo concerts.

Faraz Minooei Was born in Tehran and began playing santur at the young age of nine. While studying with Behnam Mehrabi, he discovered a deep spiritual desire to study music, seeing music as an "unexplainable souvenir from the eternal truth". Faraz received his B.A. from San Francisco State University in 2008 as a Nagle Scholar and the first World/Jazz music major with santur as his primary instrument. As a full-time musician, Faraz is an indefatigable performer, composer, and teacher. He has also had the good fortune to study with masters such as M. R. Lotfi, H. Omoumi, Royal Hartigan, Hafez Modirzadeh, Michael Dessen, Kojiro Umezaki and Christopher Dobrian.

Recipient of numerous scholarships and grants, since 2006, he has lectured and performed at many universities including SFSU, UCI, UCLA, UCSC and at the Society of Ethnomusicology. He has performed with noted ensembles in the United Sates, among which was his collaboration in 2009 with Yo Yo Ma and Kayhan Kalhor in the Silk Road Ensemble, for the 50th anniversary of the Lincoln Center.

Faraz earned his Masters of Fine Arts degree in music with emphasis in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology from the University of California in Irvine. His thesis, "Abstracting" Iranian Classical Music , challenges the traditional practice of Iranian Classical Music to introduce innovative and transformative functions of the music in contemporary society.

Yunxiang Gao studied at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music majoring in pipa, and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing majoring in composition. She is currently completing her graduate degree in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology at UC Irvine where the focus of her work is on adopting electronics and video to construct a multicultural reimagination of Chinese traditional and folk music.

Kojiro Umezaki grew up in Tokyo, Japan where he began studying Western flute and the shakuhachi. His career encompasses both traditional and technology-based music and a range of electronic media. My mother is from Denmark and my father is Japanese. My multinational background may be one of the reasons why I don’t limit myself to the traditional repertoire. In all my work, I try to put the shakuhachi in a more contemporary, musically diverse context. Hopefully this work can become part of the evolutionary process of the instrument.

Ko is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Irvine where he is affiliated with the Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology group (ICIT) and holds a degree in Electro-acoustic Music from Dartmouth College. Recent commissioned works and producer credits include those for Brooklyn Rider (2009), Joseph Gramley (2009, 2010), Huun Huur Tu (2010), and the Silk Road Ensemble (2012). He performs regularly with the Grammy-nominated Silk Road Ensemble and has recorded on the Sony BMG, World Village, and Smithsonian Folkways labels.

Jin Hi Kim is internationally acclaimed innovative komungo virtuoso and a Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition. Kim returns to the Pan Music Festival this year since she premiered her Monk Dance for Orchestra and Buddhist Barrel Drums with Stanford Symphony Orchestra at the festival 2007.

She has introduced the indigenous instrument for the first time into Western contemporary music scene through her wide array of compositions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, cross-cultural ensemble, multi-media, soundtrack, and avant-garde improvisations. Kim has co-designed the world's only electric komungo.

During the three decades Kim has performed as soloist in her own compositions and improvisations at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Royal Festival Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), and many significant new music festivals, jazz festivals, museums and universities throughout the world.

Kim’s compositions have been commissioned by leading American musicians and producers including Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Music Project, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, The Kitchen, and Japan Society.

Kim has received Award for Music Composition from the Foundation For Contemporary Performance Art, which was created by John Cage and Jasper Johns to support innovative creative work in the arts. She is a recipient of American Composers Orchestra Composer Fellowship, Wolff Ebermann Prize for at International Theater Institute, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, MAP fund from Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet The Composer US Commission as well as the artist residence fellowship for the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Italy, Asian Cultural Council to Japan, Djerassi Foundation, California, and Freeman Artist-In-Residence at Cornell University.

In South Korea Kim’s autobiography Komungo Tango, a 25 years journey of creative collaborations with master musicians around the world, was published. Special interviews about her electric komungo and performances were featured on KBS-TV Korean National Broadcasting, Arirang TV-Global Broadcasting, MBC-TV, and YTN National TV.

Currently Kim is New Haven Symphony Orchestra Komungo Master-in- Residence (2011-2012) and Music Alive Composer-in-Residence with New Haven Symphony Orchestra (2009-2011). Kim participated in a New York Philharmonic Credit Suisse Very Young Composers project in collaboration with Korea Arts and Culture Education Service.

Being a ziuta (jiuta) and sôkyoku (music of koto) musician, she sings and performs the sangen (syamisen, alia shamisen, 3-stringed plucked lute), the koto (13-stringed zither) and the kokyû (3-stringed bowed lute). Born in Tôkyô, she studied these musical genres in the traditional manner from childhood with her mother YONEKAWA Tosiko I (the living national treasure and person of cultural merit). Later she studied contemporary music for traditional instruments at the school run by the NHK. She is extremely active throughout Japan and abroad as both performer and composer. She was awarded the Ministry of Education’s Award in Encouragement of New Artists in 1994, and then the Ministry of Education’s Award, the Arts Festival Awards of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Exxon Mobil Music Award, etc. According to the custom in traditional music of Japan, she succeeded the name of her mother and changed her name from YONEKAWA Hiroe to YONEKAWA Tosiko II in 200x. In 2011 she received the Medal with a Purple Ribbon from the Government of Japan.

Born 1936 in Tokyo. He studied aesthetics and musicology at the University of Tokyo. Later in 1982 he obtained Doctrate from the Univesité Laval, Canada. After retiring from Ochanomizu Univesity (now, professor emeritus), and from the Open University of Japan, he is teaching musicology and cultural policy in arts in Seitoku University. His main fields are semiology of music and ‘behavioristic’ musicology. From 1994 to 2000 he guided a project for revitalizing Vietnamese court music and in 1994 succeeded in opening a teaching course in the State University of Hue. For this effort the Vietnamese Government awarded him the medal of ‘cultural combatant’ in 1999. In addition to academic research he positively introduced traditional music of Japan inside and outside by opening concerts. He has been helping the activities of the National Theatre of Japan, Ministry of Education, Agency for cultural affairs, Japan Steel Cultural Foundation, etc.

California Youth Chinese Symphony (CYCS) is a non-profit organization serving the Bay Area and nation wide. It has a mission of promoting musical diversity and enriching cultural lives of our communities by introducing Chinese traditional music and instruments. We provide high quality and diversified education on Chinese traditional instruments and creatively integrate East-West music using both Chinese and Western instruments.

CYCS currently has more than 100 students in its education and orchestra programs. Led by many Chinese music professionals, CYCS offers various levels of classes on Chinese to young musicians. CYCS orchestra performs and introduces Chinese music and traditional instruments to the public through participation in many community cultural events Over the past years, CYCS has become a unique orchestra as the new American-born generation embraces the Chinese musical heritage.

The Sawai Koto Ensemble of San Francisco is comprised of participating members from the Kazue Sawai Koto ensemble, Sawai Koto U.S.A., Shirley Muramoto koto studio and Brian Wong koto studio. The group was organized to perform a koto ensemble piece "Fantasia" (composed by Tadao Sawai) at the Pan-Asian music Festival.

Jaesup Park is currently a professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature of Inje University. Born in Daegu in 1957, he received his Ph.D. from the Korean Department of Sogang University, Seoul in 1994 and has been teaching at Inje University since then. In 1990 he was invited by the Japan-Korea Cultural Foundation to study comparative literature at Jochi (Sophia) University in Tokyo, then in 2003 at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, particularly interested in the literatures of North- Eastern Asia, their mutual influences and reception. He also studies Korean culture as a whole and is actively involved in making it better known to the outside world. In 2008 he gave a special lecture on Korean literature and culture at Daren Foreign Language University in China, Ibaragi University in Japan, and Stanford University and the University of Southern California in the USA. Serving as the head of Inje University’s Center for Korean Language and Culture since 2007, he has been involved in caring for foreign students, including help teach them Korean language and culture. Since the beginning of 2009 he has been responsible for the developing a Seoul branch campus of Inje University, where Korean culture could be presented to foreigners, especially diplomats, residing in Seoul.

He especially is interested in the Korean tea ceremony and teaches the tea ceremony club at Inje University. He has organized many tea ceremonies both in Korea and abroad, including some in Japan.

He has also published papers and monographs on Korean novels as well as more general commentaries on Korean literature and culture.

Shin Hyeyong (born in Ansung, South Korea in 1957) is geomungo (an ancient fretted bass zither with six silk strings that are plucked with a thin bamboo stick) player and composer. She received a bachelor's degree from Seoul National University in 1981. Shin has been a member of the National Classical Music Institute, Seoul Metropolitan Traditional Music Orchestra, and Busan Traditional Music Orchestra. Currently, she is serving as a professor of Music Education at Chuncheon National University of Education.

EGO is the premiere traditional Korean percussion group at UC Berkeley with the purpose of maintaining and spreading the traditional Korean drumming, pungmul. EGO was initially founded by a group of friends in 2000. Now more than a decade old, EGO has flourished into a prominent group that lives to share the excitement that is Korean percussion music, as well as the deep traditional Korean culture and history that lies behind each beat and rhythm. The name of the group may strike as arrogant at first, but “e-go” actually means “love for the sound of drums” in Korean.

All throughout the year, EGO performs Korean traditional percussion in Berkeley and the bigger Bay area. A few of our recent performances were at venues such as the Giants’ AT&T Park and Last Sunday Festival on Telegraph Avenue. Other core activities of EGO include practicing Samulnori and Pangut every Saturdays, teaching Decal courses every semester and conducting semi-annual EGO Showcases.

Nathan Cheung is a sophomore majoring in music with concentrations in piano performance and composition. He has played the piano for over 13 years both as a soloist and with his duet partner, Eric Tran. He has won 1st place in the United States Open Music Competition and is a recipient of the Blew-Culley-LaFollette Prize for piano performance. Nathan has also had the privilege to perform as the piano soloist in the American debut of Tolga Kashif’s Queen Symphony. In addition, his string quartet will be debuted among the works of Stanford’s undergraduate composers by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Besides the piano, Nathan is also proficient in the Liuqin, a traditional Chinese lute, as well as participates in African and Korean drumming ensembles. Last summer, he toured with the Liuqin with the internationally acclaimed production, Pawn: the musical. During his free time, Nathan also enjoys biking, reading, learning languages, and learning the game of Go. He is currently studying piano under Thomas Schultz.