Episode 403: Jen Shyu
RiYL PodcastDecember 07, 202000:59:40

Episode 403: Jen Shyu

There’s a video on YouTube shot in 1991 of a 13-year-old Jen Shyu playing the hell of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on grand piano backdropped by the Peoria Symphony Orchestra.

A lifelong musician who studied theater and opera at Stanford and has performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Shyu’s current work veers into the experimental and avant-garde, all while paying homage to a wide range of musical traditions, including Taiwan an East Timor.

Often highly theatrical, her work utilizes a wide range of languages (she speaks ten) and instruments, including piano, violin, the two-string Taiwanense moon lute and the Chinese er hu, among others.

Shyu closed out last year with the performance of her show “Zero Grasses,” a part of John Zorn’s on-going Commissioning series in New York.