San Francisco-based composer Hyo-shin Na is the youngest person ever to receive the coveted Korean National Composers Prize (1994). She has had her music performed in numerous festivals in her native Korea, as well as in Malaysia, Japan, Israel, Germany, and throughout the U.S. In the Bay Area, her work has been performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay, and the Stanford String Quartet. In spring 1999, the Kronos Quartet commissioned Ms. Na to compose a new work, Song of the Beggars, which the ensemble subsequently performed all over Europe, as well as in Canada, the U.S., and the Canary Islands.

Ms. Na’s work has been broadcast on National Public Radio, German Radio, and Belgian Radio. In recent years, her music for solo piano has been performed by Thomas Schultz in San Francisco, New York, and Kyoto, and by Yuji Takahashi at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo. Yuji and Aki Takahashi have also performed her music for two pianos in Tokyo.

Hyo-Shin Na has received commissioning awards from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, and by the National Cultural Center of Korea to write a work for the Seoul Contemporary Music Festival. In 1998, she received an ASCAP Foundation award.

Ms. Na has lectured in Korea and the U.S. on the relationship between her work and traditional Korean music. In summer 1999, she was composer-in-residence at the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul. Her music has been recorded on the SEOUL label and is published in Korea and Australia.

Rain Study
Recorded at Other Minds 6, March 17, 2000
performed by Thomas Schultz, piano
© 1999 Hyo-shin Na

Blue Yellow River
Recorded at Other Minds 6, March 17, 2000
performed by Ji Young Yi, kayageum; Joan Jeanrenaud, cello; Richard Worn, double bass
World concert première
© 2000 Hyo-shin Na