Photo by Paul H. Taylor

BIOGRAPHY

Jason Kao Hwang has received grants from The National Endowment of the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, the Greenwall Foundation, the Manhattan Community Arts Fund and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust for his opera Immigrant of the Womb. Immigrant of the Womb recently premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City and featured soprano and baritone singers with ten musicians playing Western, Chinese and newly invented instruments. Victo Records has just released the 2nd CD of his quartet, The Far East Side Band Urban Archaeology . Their first CD, Caverns, was released in November, 1994, on New World Records. The Far East Side Band has performed in Merkin Hall (NYC), the Whitney Museum (NYC), and has toured Canada and Europe. Also in the past months Mr. Hwang performed with the percussionist Vladamir Tarasov Trio(w/Mark Dresser) at BAM, String Leaders(w/Leroy Jenkins, Diedre Murray, Calvin Hill and Newman Baker) at the Brooklyn Museum and toured Europe with the Anthony Braxton's Septet, the Reggie Workman Ensemble and the Henry Threadgill Society Situation Dance Band.

Mr. Hwang was in the original cast of Broadway's M Butterfly, performing music he co-arranged for this Tony Award winning drama. He also toured with the equally successful national company as a music director.

Mr. Hwang's ensemble, The Far East Side Band , features Sang-Won Park (kayagum, ajang, voice), Yukio Tsuji (world percussion, shakuhachi), Joe Daley(tuba, electronics) and the composer(electric violin, electronics). The Far East Side Band , whose originating members include both lst and 2nd generation Asian-Americans, is actively developing an American musical language that emerges from both their native cultures and their experiences in America.

As a composer/violinist Mr. Hwang has two other well-received recordings, Unfolding Stone (Sound Aspects) featuring Geoffrey Gordon, Mark Dresser, Ned Rothenberg, J.D. Parran and Wilson Moorman; and Commitment(Flying Panda), featuring Will Connell Jr., William Parker and Takeshi Zen Matsuura.

In addition, he has considerable experience in the commercial field. Recently he completed a sonic composition for the Liberty Science Center's exhibit Monsters of the Deep. He has also worked for the renown animator John Canemaker, scoring his Confessions of A Stand-Up and Welcome to the Galaxy Classroom.. He created music for The Women Outside by J.T. Takagi/Hye Jung Park, Kathe Sandler's A Question of Color(PBS), All Men Are Created Equal? by Rene Tajima, Voices in Celebration (National Gallery of Art 's 50th anniversary), Bali, Beyond the Postcard (Outside in July Productions) and The Emperor's Eye, Art and Power in China (Alvin H. Perlmutter/ Lisa Hsia Productions). In the commercial spot world, Mr. Hwang's music can be heard for Faded Glory, Swatch, Snapple and WCBS. Mr. Hwang is recorded on Henry Threadgill's Come Save the Day (Columbia) and Too Much Sugar for a Dime (Axiom), Sola Liu's China Blues (Axiom), Reggie Workman's Altered States(Leo) and Butch Morris's Dust to Dust and Testament: A Conduction Collection(New World). He has also recorded with the collective X Communication (FMP, w/Shelly Hirsch, Butch Morris, J.A. Deane, Hans Reichel, Paul Lovens, Martin Schutz and Hans Koch), the Jerome Cooper Ensemble (About -Time), Kevin Harris (Enja), Billy Bang (Celluloid) and the Williamsburg Contemporary Music Orchestra (WCM) .

He has performed with numerous artists including Borah Bergman, Fred Hopkins, Sirone, Jeff Schanzer, Michelle Kinney, David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Ushio Torikai, Sirone, Billy Bang, Frank Lowe, Sunny Murray and Ken MacIntyre. He has appeared on various stages including the Istanbul Festival (Turkey), Carnegie Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, the Village Gate, the Public Theatre, the Museum of Modern Art, the Willesau (Switzerland), the FMP(Germany), the Levercruzen (Germany), the Groningen (Denmark), Moers (Germany) and the Nickelsdorf(Austria) Festivals.

REVIEWS

"Urban Archaeology"...uses unorthodox tonalities and a fresh compositional viewpoint to escape the geographical pull of "conventional" ethnic music and jazz. Led by electric violinist Jason Kao Hwang, they explore similarities between free jazz improvisation and traditional Asian music, combining haunting brass, wind and string sonorities. **** Art Lange, PULSE

*****(Five Stars), The Far East Side Band, "Caverns", New World Records . Steve Lake, GERMAN ROLLING STONE

Hwang's music (The Far East Side Band, "Urban Archaeology") unfurls across great spaces of listener-time, demanding multiple close listening and still rewarding even the most casual spin-of the- disc. Andrew Bartlett, THE PIPE

Chinese-American violinist Jason Hwang is one of New York's unsung new music heroes. On this, his second and best release as a leader ("Caverns"), his trio forges a music of startling originality, uncompromising in its search to express a new cultural reality. THE BOSTON PHOENIX

The salient quality of the Far East Side Band lies not merely in the stretching of musical boundaries or the mixing of cultures, but in the exciting and adventurous music produced by three masterful improvisers who make music unlike anything you've ever heard. CMJ MAGAZINE

Jason Hwang's Far East Side Band evokes an intimately spacious tonal and textural landscape... a quieter sound which breathes with space and subtle transformations. JAZZIZ MAGAZINE

The recent Cross Cultural Improvisation concert featuring Jason Kao Hwang and The Far East Side Band at Washington Square Church was, simply put, stunning. ASIAN NEW YORKER

Jason's gives (his) own richly emotional sound... sometimes leaving space for the gutsy, strong, blues-like sense of pain that he hears and is attracted to in Sang's playing. Sometimes approximating the quality of the shakuhachi or becoming involved in a certain way Yukio and he feel about space ... THE WIRE MAGAZINE

Each member reaches into his own distinct past and experiences, to move forward on a common ground. THE KOREAN TIMES

Jason Hwang played a mutated five-string electric violin with virtuosic intensity ... THE SEATTLE WEEKLY

The Far East Side Band's evident sense of a common direction lent a strong cohesive framework to the music. THE JAPAN TIMES

Hwang has made the Chinese connection something more than Chinoiserie. It (Unfolding Stone) sounds stunning. WIRE MAGAZINE

"Unfolding Stone" is his first recording as a leader, and it is impressive not only for his musicianship, but also for Hwang's compositional and arranging abilities... The unusual textures, the intricate violin/flute and violin/marimba passages, and subtleties such as the barely audible flute warblings, all point to an original musical mind. "Unfolding Stone" is a very auspicious debut and is strongly recommended. OPTION MAGAZINE

Jason Hwang's Glass Shadows, which performed Sunday afternoon at the Blue Note, is geared for Mr. Hwang's rhapsodic, atmospheric pieces... Glass Shadows creates music that is taut, delicate and highly original. THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jason Hwang ... has a broad language and he has the technique to express it... His music was an evocation of colors and emotions in a wide spectrum from tenderness to the volatile, piercing fragments, creating dances in a dazzling, poetic way. CODA MAGAZINE

Jason Hwang's earlier successes at blending jazz with Asian traditional music, and the presence of the quick-witted multi-instrumentalist Elliot Sharp... makes this program particularly promising. THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jason's spirited, soulful violin-playing tended to transport the listener from the club to some exotic and faraway place. At times it could have been a raga he was playing on the violin, at others, it sounded like a human voice... I'd like to think the audience was overwhelmed by the soulfulness and intensity the duo created. How else to interpret the absorption and attention they gave the performers? It was a reverent attitude not often found in this city's nightclubs. THE EAST VILLAGE EYE

For decades jazz sought East-West fusions. Commitment, the quartet... has found one that is integrated, thoughtful and deeply satisfying... Mr. Hwang's "Ocean/Diary for One at Night" was an extended piece that dovetailed composed and improvised passages inseparably. The music kept moving yet Commitment seemed to have all the time in the world. THE NEW YORK TIMES

...violinist Jason Hwang, who heads the group Commitment- and maybe that name, and that group, will head the music in a new direction one of these days, towards the Orient. Who knows? THE DAILY NEWS

Hwang's violin...reminds me of Peking Opera sopranos; his compositions use stillness and sustained notes purposefully. MUSICIAN MAGAZINE