INDIANAPOLIS— Coinciding with the annual Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC), the Indianapolis Symphony presents a special concert featuring all things percussion. The program opens with a special appearance by world-renowned percussion quartet Sō Percussion performing Pieces of Wood by Steve Reich. Virtuoso percussionist Ji Su Jung joins the ISO led by Associate Conductor Su-Han Yang in Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts’ Marimba Concerto. The percussive program rounds out with Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite , which takes the world-famous melodies from Bizet’s opera Carmen, arranged for strings and a large battery of percussion instruments.
Program to include:
Pieces of Wood
Steve Reich
Marimba Concerto
Kevin Puts
Carmen Suite for strings and percussion
Rodion Shchedrin
Performance begins at 6 p.m., November 14, 2024, at Hilbert Circle Theatre. Doors open at 5 p.m. For information regarding the policies of the Hilbert Circle Theatre, please visit the ISO website.
About Su-Han Yang
Taiwanese conductor Su-Han Yang is the Associate Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and previously served as Associate Conductor of the Taiwan Philharmonic in the 2021–2022 season. He won the First Prize in the 10th International Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition for Conductors in 2017. He received numerous invitations to collaborate with the Silesian Philharmonic, the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Brandenburger Symphoniker, and many others. Since 2016, he has regularly had Camerata Taiwan. They went on a concert tour of Germany in 2022 and released the album Beyond Boundaries on major music streaming platforms in 2023.
In 2022, he conducted Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel at the National Taichung Theater. His appearances at music festivals include the Taiwan International Festival of Arts, the Weiwuying International Music Festival, the Classica Nova in Gdynia, the Festival of Polish Music in Kraków, the Taipei International Choral Festival, the Taipei International New Music Festival, and the Asian Composers League’s Conference and Festival.
He was one of the two conductors selected for the Peter Eötvös Foundation Mentoring Program in 2018. In 2017, he was invited to work with Jun Märkl at the Pacific Music Festival. He was one of the chosen conductors to study with Riccardo Muti on the production of Verdi’s Falstaff at the Italian Opera Academy in 2015. He graduated from the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, the National Taiwan Normal University, and the Tunghai University, where he studied conducting with Prof. Christian Ehwald, Prof. Hans-Dieter Baum, Prof. Apo Ching-Hsin Hsu, and Prof. Annie Chung.
About Ji Su Jung
Born in South Korea, Ms. Jung studied marimba at age three, a rarity among percussionists. Since launching her career as a soloist, she has performed concertos with such leading orchestras and conductors as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop, the Sarasota Orchestra with Giancarlo Guerrero, the Houston Symphony with Daniel Hege, the Aspen Festival Orchestra with Michael Stern, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the Colorado Springs Philharmonic with JoAnn Falletta, the Grand Rapids Symphony with Marcelo Lehninger, and the Boise Philharmonic with Eric Garcia.
Equally at home as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and collaborative artist, Ms. Jung has performed solo recitals in such venues as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ newly renovated David Geffen Hall. An active chamber musician, she frequently performs with The Percussion Collective, an all-star collection of young percussionists, of which she has been a core member since its inception. As part of The Percussion Collective, she has recorded Garth Neustadter’s Seaborne, anticipated to be released in 2024. As a collaborative artist, she has also appeared at Yellow Barn and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, where she performed with notable artists such as Gilbert Kalish and the late Roger Tapping.
About Sō Percussion
Sō Percussion is a leading percussion quartet and nonprofit organization that fosters, creates, and presents adventurous new work with a unique focus on collaboration. Fueled by a belief in the unifying power of music, Sō Percussion brings the joy, curiosity, and inherent connectivity of percussion in all its forms to an ever broader audience.
- Touring and performing: The quartet maintains a robust touring and performing calendar, playing 40-50 concerts annually worldwide.
- New Work Development: Fostering commissions and world premieres through all phases of their creation, including two new initiatives — the Andrew W. Siegel Composition Fellowship and the Flexible Commissions program.
- Education: Teaching workshops nationwide, classes at Princeton University, and hosting the renowned Sō Percussion Summer Institute.
- Presenting: We host the popular concert series Brooklyn Bound at our studio in Brooklyn, which has recently expanded to other Brooklyn venues.
- Career Development: Offering a Studio Residency for peer artist groups and an internship for emerging nonprofit professionals.
Sō Percussion is dedicated to fostering an equitable and sustainable musical ecosystem. This includes initiatives to program a diverse range of voices, commission flexible new works, and create better pipelines for our educational programs. We are especially interested in finding new ways to include collaborators from outside classical music and incorporate practices that stimulate and enrich the percussion medium.
