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Jen Shyu

Born in Peoria, Illinois, USA, from Taiwanese and East Timorese parents, 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award recipient JEN SHYU is an experimental jazz vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, producer, and Fulbright scholar.

About Me

Born in Peoria, Illinois, USA, from Taiwanese and East Timorese parents, 2014 Doris Duke Impact Award recipient JEN SHYU is an experimental jazz vocalist, composer, multi- instrumentalist, dancer, producer, and Fulbright scholar. Larry Blumenfeld (Wall Street Journal) writes, “...Ms. Shyu is among New York's most invigorating vocal presences. And perhaps the most enigmatic.” She has produced six albums: For Now; Jade Tongue; Inner Chapters; Raging Waters, Red Sands; Sounds & Cries of the World, and is the first female artist and vocalist as bandleader on the Pi Recordings label with the widely praised album Synastry with legendary bassist Mark Dresser. After graduating from Stanford University, she became the vocalist of 2014 MacArthur Genius Award saxophonist Steve Coleman’s Five Elements from 2003 to 2011 and has presented her own music at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Bimhuis (Netherlands), Salihara Theater (Indonesia), National Gugak Center, National Theater of Korea, to name a few. She has also performed with Dave Burrell, Chris Potter, Michael Formanek, Mat Maneri, among others, and in Anthony Braxton’s operas Trillium E and Trillium J. Known for her specialization in lesser known and disappearing traditional musical forms in Taiwan, Korea, China, and East Timor, Shyu studied Javanese Sindhenan and dance for two years on a Fulbright scholarship in Indonesia 2011-2013. She then received a six-month scholarship from the National Gugak Center to study Pansori and Gayageum Byeongchang in 2013, and has also won fellowships from Asian Cultural Council, Bronx Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, and commissions from the Jazz Gallery and Roulette Intermedium, Inc. in Brooklyn, NY.

Shyu currently leads her band Jade Tongue (Ambrose Akinmusire, Dan Weiss, Thomas Morgan, Mat Maneri), and is touring her solo opera called SOLO RITES: SEVEN BREATHS, directed by renowned Indonesian filmmaker-director Garin Nugroho. It premiered on May 28, 2014, at Roulette. Her new album “SOUNDS & CRIES OF THE WORLD” will be released by Pi Recordings in the fall of 2015.