gamin will be in concert at CNMAT on February 18, 2023 at 8pm with graduate student composers Dion Nataraja and Mat Muntz.

Gamin Kang, simply known as “gamin,” a distinguished NYC soloist, tours the world perform-ing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. Born in Seoul, gamin re-ceived her B.A. (1998) and Doctor of Musical Arts (2016) in Korean music from Seoul National University. Gamin plays piri (double reed Korean oboe), taepyeonso (double-reed horn), and saenghwang (mouth organ). She is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cul-tural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Gamin was second principal piri player at National Gugak Orchestra, 2004-10. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restric-tive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Art-ist-in-Residence (2014) at the Asian Cultural Council, Rockefeller U., and Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism of Republic of Korea (2012). She has presented lecture/concerts at Harvard and Dartmouth, and in Paris, Strasbourg, and Freiburg. Gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural im-provisation in NYC with world-acclaimed musician Jane Ira Bloom, presenting premieres at Rou-lette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum, NYC. Gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma.

Mat Muntz is a composer, bassist, and experimental bagpiper. Rooted in jazz improvisa-tion and extending through microtonality, non-Western instrumentation, and experimental perfor-mance practice, Mat's work seeks to imbue the volatile and bizarre with an expressive, human im-mediacy. His music has been described by The Wire as “rare and rewarding” and by The Guardian as “filled with a wild, distorted energy.” Since completing a BM in Jazz Bass Performance at Manhattan School of Music in 2016, Mat has performed across North America, Europe, and China at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Roulette, Blue Note Beijing, and the Umbria Jazz Festival. His compositions have been premiered at The Shed, Moers Festival, Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, and the 21st Century Guitar Conference. In addition, Mat has been the recipient of awards from Brooklyn Arts Council and the New York Foundation for The Arts, and was invited to participate in the 2022 International Gugak Workshop in Seoul.

Dion Nataraja is a composer, vocalist, and scholar of contemporary music. Initially turned on to improvisatory jazz music, he is now a classically trained composer pursuing a prodigious academic career. He has accumulated a dense, complex and impactful compositional body of work, replete with cross-cultural collaboration at the intersection of areas such as spectral music, Javanese gamelan, improvisation, instrument building, algorithmic composition, posthumanism, postcolonial studies, and critical theories. As a member of Sandikala Ensemble, he has been exploring the pos-sibilities of new parameters and configurations in Javanese music, including the expansion of its traditional tuning systems to a 36 microtonal scale (without octave repetition) conceived by Dion himself. With acute sensibility to the conflicts, ambiguities and political intricacies in music tradi-tions, his work focuses on expanding contemporary Gamelan music and bridging cultural differ-ences through his artistic practice.