Photos: Jason Kao Hwang's HUMAN RITES TRIO to Release SECOND LIFE Album
Critical Response will perform at Rhizome DC, Roulette and Black Mountain College Museum with Andrew Drury and Ken Filiano.
Jason Kao Hwang's Human Rites Trio will release Second Life on October 1. The trio features Andrew Drury on drum set, Ken Filiano on string bass, and Hwang on composition and violin.
Photo Credit: Enid Farber
Hwang also has a series of upcoming live appearances with his group Critical Response, which will perform music recently recorded for a project set for release in 2027.
Critical Response is set to appear at Tedesco Recording Studios at Rhizome DC on Saturday, September 12. The evening begins at 7:15 pm with Jessica Ackerly performing solo guitar, followed at 8:15 pm by Jason Kao Hwang/Critical Response, featuring Anders Nilsson on electric guitar, Michael T.A. Thompson on drums, and Hwang on composition and electric violin. The venue is located at 6950 Maple St NW, Takoma Park, Washington, DC.
On October 22 at 8pm, Interpretations presents two sets, with pianist Ursel Schlicht and Critical Response, at Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue (Corner of Third Avenue), Brooklyn.
On October 29, Critical Response will perform at Black Mountain College Museum, 120 College St., Asheville, North Carolina.
The Human Rites Trio, featuring Andrew Drury (drum set), Ken Filiano (string bass), and Jason Kao Hwang (composer, violin), will release Second Life on October 1st.
Separately, a score page from Hwang's 1996 oratorio Immigrant of the Womb is currently included in the exhibition Common Sense at the Brooklyn Museum, and Hwang appears in a short documentary the museum produced about the show, with his interview appearing at the 8:51 mark alongside video from the performance.
According to the release, Common Sense puts America's past in dialogue with its present. Statesman, abolitionist, and philosopher Thomas Paine's most important writings, Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–83), shaped revolutionary discourse and expanded what the colonists believed was possible for their future nation. Common Sense pairs these two foundational documents with contemporary works that speak to the ongoing quest, as Paine wrote, 'to begin the world over again.' In this episode of Highlights Tour, hear from the curatorial team, Catherine Morris, Department Chair and Sackler Senior Curator, and Kimberli Gant, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, alongside participating artists Jason Kao Hwang, Joyce Kozloff, and Maynard Monrow on how these works deliver a clear message about the current moment: Power lies with us.
In 1999, the Immigrant of the Womb score page was published in the portfolio From Basement to Godzilla, which the Brooklyn Museum subsequently acquired for its permanent collection.
Additional upcoming appearances by Hwang include a performance with Tomeka Reid's Tribute to Ellington on Saturday, September 26 at 3 pm at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Logan Center for the Arts, 915 East 60th St, Chicago, Illinois. That ensemble features Tomeka Reid (composer/cello), Mikel Patrick Avery (drums), Jeb Bishop (trombone), Taylor Ho Bynum (cornet), Jason Kao Hwang (viola), Jason Roebke (string bass), Laura Anne Singh (voice), and Anna Webber (saxophone/flute).
Hwang will also appear with Taylor Ho Bynum's SpiderMonkey Dreams on Sunday, September 27 at 7:30 pm at Moondog Cafe, 8045 Linwood St., Detroit, MI, alongside Jeff Song (cello), Daniel Lin (cello), Deanna Relyea (voice), and Piotr Michalowski (contralto clarinet). According to the release, in a new grouping of old friends and long time collaborators, Bynum revisits materials from two early albums with his SpiderMonkey Strings ensemble in an Edgefest exclusive at Detroit's Moondog Cafe, including songs from his 'Madeleine Dreams' suite with text by novelist Sarah Shun-lien Bynum.
The release also notes that Hwang's project Resonance was recorded at Kaleidoscope Sound following a recent gig at Main Drag, with a CD release planned for next fall. That quintet features Bryan Carrott (vibes), Hwang (composer/violin/viola), Christopher Gordon Forbes (piano), Andrew Drury (drum set), and Ken Filiano (string bass).
Hwang's solo album Soliloquies, which the release states has remained in the top 30 of the Roots Music Radio Charts for the past two years, grew out of a pizzicato language he began developing in the late 1970s while playing duets with Will Connell Jr., usually on flute, for choreographer/dancer Theodora Yoshikami at Basement Workshop, described in the release as a now legendary, epochal Asian American organization.
Photo Credit: Enid Farber
