Uncharted: DoYeon Kim & Firas Zreik

Greenwich House Music School is pleased to present DoYeon Kim and Firas Zreik in its annual Uncharted Concert Series, part of the Elebash Artist-in-Residence Program.

DoYeon Kim is an internationally acclaimed artist known for her expansive, pioneering performances and compositions, and for introducing the gayageum—an ancient Korean zither—into contemporary music. Trained extensively in jazz and improvisation as well as in the classical Korean traditions of sanjo, jeongak, and modern gugak, she channels history, literature, and an evolving sense of the human spirit into a musical language entirely her own through original works, powerful solo performances, and global collaborations. Named one of Grammy.com’s “7 Musicians Pushing Ancient Asian Instruments Into the Future” (2021), DoYeon has received the Van Lier Fellowship (2023), a Korean Grammy Award nomination (crossover category, 2018), and was most recently selected as a Next Jazz Legacy awardee (2025). After winning major traditional music competitions in Korea, including the Dong-A Ilbo Traditional Music and National Gugak Center Korean Music Competitions, she pursued contemporary improvisation and jazz studies at the New England Conservatory and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, becoming the first student admitted to both programs to perform on a Korean traditional instrument. She has since served on the faculty at the New England Conservatory and The New School, lectured internationally at institutions including Harvard and the Franz Liszt Academy, and continues to lead her own projects while collaborating widely; recent roles include invited composer for Delirium Musicum (2025), Music Director of the ACCX Music Festival Gwangju (2025), and music director and conductor of the Gyeonggi Sinawi Orchestra (2023), alongside performances and recordings with artists such as Tyshawn Sorey, Kris Davis, Peter Evans, and many others.

Composer and kanunist Firas Zreik is a Palestine-born, New York–based artist who has performed and recorded internationally as a leader and sought-after collaborator since 2013. Known for redefining global perceptions of the kanun, Zreik honors the instrument’s roots in the Maqam tradition while expanding its expressive range across contemporary musical forms, viewing Maqam’s improvisation-driven legacy as a vessel for boundless creative exploration. His music is marked by emotional depth and a refined command of microtonal sound, moving fluidly between intricately orchestrated and spontaneous settings. Zreik has collaborated with a wide spectrum of artists, including Roger Waters, G.E. Smith, Residente, Simon Shaheen, Amir ElSaffar, Fabrizio Cassol, Shankar Mahadevan, Aynur Doğan, and Amal Murkus—his mother and frequent artistic partner, for whom he serves as musical director—and has brought his deeply expressive live performances to venues and festivals around the world.

Firas Zreik will combine his deep understanding of the Maqam tradition - the scale system in the Levantine, North African, and the Mediterranean region - with elements of modern global musical styles absorbed throughout his musical development, creating a fresh, modern, authentic sound, via a dazzling technique with the Kanun (Mediterranean harp) at its core for his Uncharted performance.

Uncharted, now in its twelfth year, has been an invaluable resource for New York-based musicians to develop original material, foster new collaborations, and premiere first-look projects in an intimate concert setting.

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