Award-winning vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu speaks about her wide range of influences, her studies in Asia, and the various compositions that we hear during the program. She is a Rome Prize Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, among many others. 

As David Hajdu of The Nation wrote, Jen Shyu is "...one of the most creative vocalists in contemporary improvised music...A singer like no other, Shyu is both lyrical and wildly adventurous, producing sounds in languages as diverse as English and Javanese, Korean, and Tetum (spoken on the divided island of Timor), all of which combine to produce a beautiful language of her own passionate invention."