"I believe everyone is an artist in some form and that art can be found everywhere."
Prior to completing my first year of university, my only experience in improvisation outside of a jazz context was through being a teaching assistant at the VSO School of Music’s “Painting with Sound” music workshop for young kids.
However, during my first year at Juilliard (studying Jazz Performance with a specialization in Jazz Bass), I was exposed to a multitude of interdisciplinary collaborations and tried to involve myself in as many community-led performances and initiatives as possible.
I successfully applied to and formed a Gluck fellowship group with a pianist and three dancers to program interactive concerts for audiences across New York City in the coming fall semester. I also performed in several events hosted by my school’s Asian Students Alliance, including a Chinese New Year celebration where I improvised over a traditional Chinese ballad with a guitarist while dancers improvised to the music simultaneously, and a duet with a trombonist for an end-of-year showcase in honour of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) month with a group of dancers who performed “structured improv”. Additionally, I participated in several workshops over the year with the drama and dance divisions to explore collaborative “free” improvisation.
These experiences exposed my unfamiliarity with improvising outside of a musical context and an interest in further exploration. While improvising, I tend to stay within the confines of structured forms, chord changes, and simple harmonies; however, I strive for guidance and opportunities to go beyond these boundaries. I am interested in applying elements of improvisation as inspired by subjects outside of music, such as nature, paintings, architecture, time, and space.
As I will be
participating in
Juilliard’s Gluck
fellowship program
in the fall, I am excited
to apply what I learned from this workshop to programming interactive concerts to inspire people to realize that they are not detached or removed from being creative.
I believe that everyone is an artist in some form and that art can be found everywhere, and I want to inspire others to become artists, regardless of what that means or looks like to them.
