Jun Hee Park to Join Laura Orzehoski's Quartet at the Stonewall Inn
The South Korean jazz musician previously led the award-winning band JAZZ DEO before relocating to New York.
Starting this September pianist Jun Hee Park will bring her talents to a residency at the Stonewall Inn, a room where music, New York history, and American cultural memory come together.
Stonewall has long meant more than the performances held inside it. The venue is part of the Stonewall National Monument and is tied to a defining moment in the modern gay civil-rights movement. It has also hosted performances by some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, including Taylor Swift, Madonna, Sara Bareilles, and Cate Blanchett.
Park will be performing as the lead pianist of Laura Orzehoski's quartet; Orzehoski is an acclaimed jazz trombonist and winner of the William H. Borden Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Jazz. Such a long-term residency is rare for a New York venue, which speaks to the status and reputation of both the quartet and Park herself.
Park arrives at Stonewall with a career already formed in high-profile performance spaces. From 2016 to 2018, she was the lead pianist and a founding member of Jazz Deo, an award-winning South Korean jazz band. With the group, she starred in concerts at the Nonsan Moonlight Festival, the 'Jazz Falls in Love with Wine' concert series, Buyeo Seodong Lotus Festival, 66th Gaecheon Arts Festival, the Busan Citizens Park Street Art Festival, and the Haeundae Jazz Festival.
At the Haeundae Jazz Festival, Park led Jazz Deo to winning the Grand Prize in a nationwide band competition. The band returned the following year as headliners for 'Jazz Falls in Love with Wine,' a famous jazz concert series in South Korea.
The Korean festival circuit gave Park both scale and prestige. Buyeo Seodong Lotus Festival draws more than 300,000 visitors each year, and Park appeared there as Jazz Deo's lead pianist in a headlining performance. At the 66th Gaecheon Arts Festival, Park and the band placed third in a national competition featuring 60 bands from across South Korea.
Her club history runs through some of Korean jazz's most important rooms. Park served as lead pianist at Yellow Taxi Jazz Club in Daejeon from 2016 to 2018, performing regularly and helping shape the club's live music. In 2019, she appeared at the legendary jazz club Diva Janus in Seoul with Eun-Chang Choi, one of South Korea's most prominent Jazz bassists. Founded in 1978 by Park Sung-yeon, Diva Janus became one of the central venues in Korean jazz history.
The Stonewall series gives Park a long New York stage after years of professional recognition in Korea. It also gives the room a pianist with a history of award-winning ensemble work, major public performances, and recordings. Every week, we can all hear Park bring her brand of jazz to one of the most significant rooms in the United States.
