Han-earl Park
“Guitarist Han-earl Park is a musical philosopher…. Expect unexpected things from Park, who is a delightful shape-shifter….” — Brian Morton (Point of Departure)
Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park (박한얼) has been crossing borders and performing fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, always traditional, open improvised musics for twenty years. He has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces across Europe, Korea and the USA.
Park engages a cyborg virtuosity in which mind, body and artifact collide noisily. He is fascinated by the ways in which improvisation can complicate and amplify social relations, identities and agencies, and he is driven by the revolutionary potential of real-time interactive performance in which tradition and practice become playfully problematic.
He is the mastermind behind ensembles including Eris 136199 with Catherine Sikora and Nick Didkovsky; and Sirene 1009 with Dominic Lash, Mark Sanders and rit.; and has duos with Yorgos Dimitriadis, and with Richard Barrett. Park constructed the machine improviser io 0.0.1 beta++, and Metis 9, a playbook of improvisative tactics. He has performed with Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, Pauline Oliveros, Josh Sinton, Louise D. E. Jensen, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Ingrid Laubrock, Andrew Drury, Pat Thomas and Franziska Schroeder.
His projects have appeared at festivals including Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Freedom of the City (London), Brilliant Corners (Belfast), ISIM (New York), dialogues festival (Edinburgh) and Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), and on record labels including NEWJAiM Recordings, SLAM Productions and DUNS Limited Edition. Park taught improvisation at University College Cork, and founded Stet Lab, a space for improvised music in Cork.
Photo credit: Jazz em Agosto / Petra Cvelbar.