Board of Directors
Inhyun Kim
As a frequent collaborator with choreographers, visual artists, and filmmakers, composer Inhyun Kim challenges her audience think in new and unconventional ways about music as a performing art. Ms. Kim has been commissioned by organizations such as White Wave Dance Company, The Actor’s Theatre, Hudson Saxophone Quartet and Brooklyn Independent television, and her works have been performed at the D.U.M.B.O dance festival, Wave Rising series, the Joyce Soho theatre, What We Want!!!, The Tompkins Square gallery at the New York Public Library, Dance New Amsterdam, Ceres Gallery as part of 2008 Make Music NY, the Museum of Modern Arthur as part of the 12th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge festival, The Galapagos art space and Symphony Space. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s Music degrees and studied with Julia Wolfe, Susan Botti and Reiko Fueting. Ms. Kim’s music can be heard on her CD "Music =", released in 2010 by Carrier Records. Ms. Kim is a recipient of the Jordan Berk Memorial Prize in composition, and was recently rewarded a mentorship with composer Vivian Fung, as part of NYFA’s Mentoring program for Immigrant Artists. Ms. Kim is co-director of the contemporary music nonprofit organization, Ear To Mind.
Jenny Q Chai
Hailed as a “brilliant and fearless young performer,” Jenny Q Chai is an active pianist specializing in contemporary music. Recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust’s 2011 Pianist/Composer Commissioning Project, first prize winner of the Keys to the Future Contemporary Solo Piano Festival, and recipient of the DAAD Arts and Performance award in 2010, Chai has premiered, most notably, Life Sketches by Nils Vigeland, Exercise in Deism by John Slover, Intimate Rejection by Ashley Fu-Tsun Wang, and Blue Inscription by Scott Wollschleger. Chai has also premiered “Marriage (Mile 58) Section F” from The Road by Frederick Rzewski in Ghent, Belgium, where she was given the Logos Award for the best performance of 2008. Recently, Chai had the privilege of introducing the concept of prepared piano to a Chinese audience, with the world premiere of Mallet Dance by John Slover, in Shanghai Concert Hall.
Chai has studied at the Shanghai Music Conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (under Classical pianist and conductor Seymour Lipkin) and the Manhattan School of Music in New York City (under Solomon Mikowsky, Nils Vigeland, and Anthony de Mare). As part of her doctorate program at MSM, Chai moved abroad to Germany, where she worked with the contemporary pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and performed in Ensemble 20/21, directed by David Smeyers, as well as the group Musikfabrik. Chai has been covered on major medium throughout the U.S., China, and Europe, including Time Out New York, Shanghai Culture, and Cologne Daily News, and her performances of contemporary music have been broadcast in Italy, Germany, China, and the U.S. Her talents have been showcased on recordings with Ensemble 20/21 on the Deutschlandfunk label (performing music by Hanns Eisler) and as solo pianist/vocalist on ArpaViva’s New York Love Songs.
Now splitting her time between the U.S. and China, Chai is on the Board of Directors of the New York City-based contemporary music organization Ear to Mind, and is founder of FaceArt Music Association in Shanghai. In an Ear to Mind performance at Symphony Space in April 2011, Chai premiered Five Pieces (for Jenny Q Chai) by Nils Vigeland.
Meg Wilhoite
Meg Wilhoite is a published writer and active blogger covering the indie and contemporary music scenes. Educated as a music theorist, Meg occasionally participates in academic activities, and is also co-director of Music at First, a contemporary music series curated by composer Will Smith, held at First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn.
Ruyi Lu
Ruyi Lu, a Shanghai-native raised in Tokyo and the San Francisco/Bay Area, is a Development Professional at The Juilliard School.
An avid lover of performing arts, Lu is the co-founder of Music In Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education and was awarded the 1st place in Chopin's Nocturne at the U.S. Open Piano Competition. She has directed numbers of music concerts and is particularly interested in the role of performing arts in the wider global dialogue.
A quadrilinguall, Lu's professional experience extends to international journalism and publication. In parallel to her career in fundraising, she has also served as a foreign correspondent to The Japan Business News. Lu is the author of Crossing the Three Borders as well as co-editor of the upcoming book containing personal narratives by Global Nomads.
A U.S. Fulbright Scholar, Lu holds a B.A. from University of California -Berkeley, and an Ed.M. from Harvard University.