Ji Hye Jung, marimba virtuoso and associate professor of percussion at Vanderbilt University, has been praised as "spectacular" by the Los Angeles Times and "extraordinary" by the Ventura County Star. The Times describes Jung as "a centered player who can give the impression of being very still yet at all places at once."
Jung began concertizing in her native South Korea at age nine and has since garnered recognition for her exceptional artistry, technical mastery, and dedication to contemporary music on international stages.
Jung is deeply committed to collaborating with composers to further the creation of a new voice for the art form and frequently performs with many of today's most important conductors and instrumentalists.
Jung completed a master of music degree from the Yale School of Music and a bachelor of music degree at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, both under the tutelage of Robert van Sice. As an artist endorser, she proudly represents Pearl/Adams instruments, Vic Firth sticks and mallets, and Zildjian cymbals.
Website: https://jihyepercussion.com/
Composer/inventor Tod Machover is Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media and Director of the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab. Called a “musical visionary” by The New York Times, Machover creates music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries and designs technologies that expand music’s potential for everyone, from celebrated virtuosi to musicians of all abilities.
Machover’s music has been performed and commissioned by many of the world's most prominent musicians and artistic institutions, and he has received numerous prizes and honors, including from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, Musical America (which named him Composer of the Year), and the French Culture Ministry, which appointed him an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024. Machover is especially celebrated for his groundbreaking operas including VALIS, Brain Opera, Death and the Powers (2010), and Schoenberg in Hollywood, and he is currently working on his next opera, The Overstory, based on Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Machover is known for developing new technologies for music, from Hyperinstruments that enhance performance expressivity for virtuosi and amateurs (Guitar Hero grew out of his Lab), to Hyperscore that uses simple lines and colors to open musical creativity for young people, to numerous sonic strategies for promoting wellbeing and combatting disease, to radical and rewarding applications of musical AI.
Biography: MIT Media Lab
Website: todmachover.com
Ana Schon is a Master’s student in Prof. Tod Machover’s Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she has been composing, recording, engineering, and performing music for as long as she can remember. Before MIT, she attended Berklee College of Music and is part of the latin-indie-folk duo Borneo and also is creator of a solo project of songs in English and Spanish. Her work has been featured in publications like Billboard Argentina, WERS, and the Boston Globe, and she has collaborated on sound production for major performances at Lincoln Center, Seoul Arts Center, Boston Symphony Hall, and the Venice Biennale, among others. At the Media Lab, Ana combines this music-tech experience with her interest in innovative, approachable, and adaptable technology to create visceral artistic experiences that connect people with the communities that surround them and the spaces they inhabit.
Website: https://anaschon.carrd.co/
