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Hello and welcome to the Insights and Sounds podcast, a podcast centered around classical music. Join Dr. John Sinclair, and explore composers past and present, their works, and an occasional classical music informational episode.
Hello, good people. It's so good to be with you today, but more important than me being with you is that I have a star with us today. Gigi Gitar, one of the great guitar virtuosos of our time. She came during the pandemic, and we didn't get much of a chance to talk, and now we're gonna get a chance to hear from her. So welcome, Gigi.
Jiji:Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Sinclair:So let's start by, telling us a little bit about yourself. I know you came here from South Korea. Did you come here to study?
Jiji:Yes. I met Jason Veo, who was a Grammy winner and this fabulous American guitarist. He came to South Korea for recital and a master class, and I just, like, fell in love with his playing and his teaching style. So I actually went up to him at the master class and said, I wanna study with you.
Dr. Sinclair:And so that was where? At the Cleveland Institute?
Jiji:Yes. He was teaching at Cleveland Institute of Music, and I studied there for 2 years. I moved to Cleveland when I was 16, and then I transferred to Curtis when he got the job at Curtis.
Dr. Sinclair:Mhmm. Yeah. So you followed him into Curtis then?
Jiji:I just followed him everywhere.
Dr. Sinclair:Good for you. And then and then your first teaching job was where? Arizona State?
Jiji:Yep. Arizona State University in 2018.
Dr. Sinclair:Good. And now you're at a fabulous university.
Jiji:Yes. I am an associate professor of guitar at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music.
Dr. Sinclair:Yeah. What a great school.
Jiji:I love it there.
Dr. Sinclair:I bet I bet you would. Great music making music. Yeah. One of the great schools of our country, actually. So one of the things that always impresses me about you is you're a musician's musician.
Dr. Sinclair:But in addition to that, you're what's going to be the next generation of of classical artists. And what I believe is that next generation here are people that are really versatile. So if you come to your program, you're going to see you sit there and play gorgeous acoustical guitar and and and just as we expect from a guitar recital. But then you'll stand you'll change instruments and pick up your electric guitar. You'll even do looping.
Dr. Sinclair:You'll do works with your computer. Talk to us about the versatility and how you got into that and kind of what that means to you.
Jiji:Yeah. I mean, this recital program is really exciting because I start with this really old piece by Hilleguht, Bong Bingen. And, you know, and it's like I played this piece with an electric guitar, with drones because I'm kinda reinterpreting, you know, what it would be if it was in the style of, like, doom metal. Right? Mhmm.
Jiji:So it's kind of a way of of of, I was very inspired by her music and you know, so I kinda do this really fun take on her music, then I go into, you know, really intimate classical pieces from, you know, we I'm gonna do some Bach. And then I played my traditional repertoire, but then I also play really fun contemporary music, and I also play a little bit of my own music. So I kind of bring everything. And I I what I always like to say is that, in my recitals is that music is a universal language, but I also believe that, you know, emotions that we feel through music is universal. So it doesn't matter what time or which country it's really from.
Jiji:I wanna kinda get rid of those boundaries and bring all this fabulous music that I find really important to this recital. So it's a bit of everything.
Dr. Sinclair:Oh, that that that's exactly what we like to hear. But back to your love of music. Of course, we as musicians love music, but not everybody has that same passion as you drive. I watch you perform. It's obvious that you're having the best time of anybody in the room.
Dr. Sinclair:Is that a fair assessment?
Jiji:Yeah. It's so cool. Music is so cool.
Dr. Sinclair:Well, it's it's it's obvious. I watch you and I just think, oh my gosh. She's she's having more fun than anybody else in this room, and and it it it just it you know, passion is contagious, and so the audience gets caught up in that same that same excitement. Now I I you probably know this, but where I first saw you was I went to an undergraduate school, William Jewell College, and they run a fine fine art series. And I watched you on their fine art series in the pandemic, And I was so taken by your work and not only your playing, but how you interacted.
Dr. Sinclair:Yeah. And and so for people to come to this concert, they'll have a chance to have conversation with you, ask questions, and I know that you actually enjoy the interaction with the audience.
Jiji:Yeah. I think it's really important because I do present music that they might have never heard of, and I think it's really important for me to present some relevance of the music. I want I want the audience and my music to have some sort of connection beyond that. So and for me, I love talking about these pieces. And although I like talking about structure and forms with I can talk ears off about these things, but I also like talking really fun facts, kind of like my little, I don't know, fun facts hat with people.
Jiji:So it's like a really fun way to connect with the audience with these stories. Like, the Paganini that I'm gonna play for you, the Caprisso number 24, it's a really fun story. I I think it'll be a really
Dr. Sinclair:good story. Tell us. Tell us.
Jiji:Tell us. So, you know, Paganini not only was an amazing virtuosic, player and composer, but he was kind of an egomaniac. He wanted to well, he wanted to only write pieces that he could only play. Right? No one can play.
Jiji:Right? And so there's a really funny story that, he actually played with a guitar duo. Yeah. And they toured everywhere. And one day, the guitarist goes, hey, man.
Jiji:You know, you're, you know, you're playing all these cool things, and I'm just playing chords. I'm just like accompanying you. I'm getting a little bored. Can you write something more interesting for my line? And Park Geun hyung goes, okay.
Jiji:Okay. Okay. And then a few months later, he brings this new piece, and the guitarist goes, like, this is way too hard. Woah. What do you mean?
Jiji:I can't play this. And Paganini goes, give me your guitar. And he plays the part flawlessly. Not only was he an amazing violinist, he was also an amazing guitarist, but he kinda did that to put him in place. Right?
Jiji:So the guitarist quits that day.
Dr. Sinclair:I didn't know he played guitar.
Jiji:Yeah. He was really, really good. So, to just kinda show you, I I give this story whenever I play Paganini. It's like you know, but the cap is 24. When you see it, it's like this piece.
Jiji:Look what I can do on the guitar.
Dr. Sinclair:Wow. Wow. What a great story. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Sinclair:Yeah. I I have to tell you that although I I know virtually nothing about guitar except for I love to hear guitar recitals, they were so influential in my life. In college, I heard Andres Serkovic play, not a bad name in the guitar world. And then the next year heard, Christopher Parkining.
Jiji:Wow.
Dr. Sinclair:And he was an amazing player too. And then, of course, I brought Christopher Parkining for a concert here. And the Bach Festival has a long history of bringing great guitars, and that's why you're here because you fit right in with those great guitars. Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Paul Galbraith, Romero's. We we have a long love for great guitarists here.
Dr. Sinclair:And so your recitals are so much more varied than other recitals that we've had. And I think that that speaks to where classical music is going. Mhmm. Mhmm. And and talk to me a little bit about why you think it's important to to play such verse versatile pieces and play play music of so versatile styles.
Jiji:Yeah. This is a really great question. I think it kinda goes back to my roots a little bit, so I I'll bore you a little bit, but I actually started playing the guitar because I wanted to be in a rock band. Okay. So when I was 8 years old, my father, especially, bought me DVDs and CDs of, like, Deep Purple, Harry Clapton, and, you know, the Prince Prince.
Jiji:I mean, I was just fell in love with rock music, really, and blues. And, you know, I asked my parents to buy me an electric guitar, and they said no. I think they were kind of scared that I would, you know, drown the whole apartment in Seoul with loud, you know, guitar shredding things. And, they said, okay. We're gonna buy you a classical guitar.
Jiji:And if you do this really well, we'll buy you an electric guitar, which never happened. I bought my own many many years later. But for me, there was this thing because I listened to a lot of pop. I I love listening to rock music, and I've always had that. But going into classical training, I felt that I wasn't able to explore those music because I was in this rigorous kind of training.
Jiji:And there was this time where I was, like, asking myself, I'm going to these shows. I I wear wigs and go to these, like, really cool rap shows. Why can't I bring all these worlds that really mean so much to me? And and I there was this fear of, like, oh, I'm gonna get rejected by everyone. Nobody's gonna take me seriously.
Jiji:And but I actually didn't care anymore. K. And I started playing, you know, you know, different styles of music, and then people really, really reacted well to it. And I think it was kind of refreshing too. And it's like, oh, this Bach piece that you paired with this, you know, electronicana point, I love that.
Jiji:I see the parallel of it. That was a really cool curated moment. So that's what I try to do. So
Dr. Sinclair:Oh, you you do you do beautifully. You know, it fits right in with the ethos of the Bach Festival. We're in our 90th anniversary, but in the 5th anniversary or so, the conductor said it might be a little limiting if we only do the music of Bach, so we're going to allow any music that Bach could have influenced. Well, of course, that's everybody.
Jiji:Yeah. That's everybody.
Dr. Sinclair:That's everybody. So since then, we have felt free to to explore all kinds of genre and styles of music, and it makes it a lot more interesting. So how did you learn about all the electronics? Is that just an offshoot of your love of rock music and pop music? Because you're really adept at at, at looping and and sequencing and all the other things that happen with computers, guitars.
Dr. Sinclair:How did you learn that?
Jiji:So in my undergrad, I was also really interested in electronica music, and, you know, I taught this, you know, taught myself this software called Ableton. And I use Ableton. You're gonna hear me use Ableton this weekend. And I just kinda spent my whole time when I wasn't practicing. I'll just, like, you know, shut my door and then put my headphones on and just make beats.
Dr. Sinclair:Oh, okay.
Jiji:And I also, this is really funny. I also have a turn alternative, like, persona, like, of musician, and I I write, like, all these, like, drone and electronica music, and I did some these basement shows. And it it just because, like, you learn a lot by doing so, so I started incorporating that, oh, I could do this in my recitals. So, yeah, I I just really loved electronic music, and, that's how I got really sufficient and good enough at Ableton.
Dr. Sinclair:It's it's it's impressive. So I watch I've watched in the last 5 years your career just to keep going up and up and up. So what is one of the more you get to travel the world. What is one of the more interesting concerts you've ever played? Or locations or a certain event.
Dr. Sinclair:What tell me, what was one of the most interesting?
Jiji:Yeah. Okay. So this is great because I have 2 contrasting concerts that I can tell you that happened this spring. One was I, I premiered this guitar concerto by Stephen Mackie, who is one of my heroes, who also got me really interested in electric guitar as well. So he wrote this classical and electric guitar concerto for me, and it had a looper.
Jiji:K. It was terrifying to play a looper with an orchestra. I had nightmares because you're off with the orchestra, then you're totally off. And it was this thing. He kinda did this thing where it's in 4 movements 5 movements.
Jiji:And one is, like, it's classical guitar, and it's totally beautiful and intimate and very, like, traditional style. And then the second movement is a delay pedal, and you're stuck with the delay, and it's a dotted 8th note. Mhmm. And then you have to be in the grid with the orchestra, and, like, you it's kind of this machine thing with the guitar. It was, like, a really interesting piece, and you have to be as mechanical as possible.
Jiji:And the 3rd movement was, like, he was coding Santana, who's also one of my favorite guitarist. I mean, that tone. We spent, like, weeks weeks just, like, to get that perfect tone. And it has, like, all these different techniques and, you know, using all these, like, effects. And then the 4th movement, I used, you know, those, the slides.
Jiji:I've never played with slides before. So it was like this kind of prepared guitar with slides, and in the middle of the movement, he quotes Mudara. Because Stephen Mackie was like, you know, I was I was a classical guitarist in my teenage years, and I've loved playing Madara. So I'm gonna quote Madara. And then it takes into this whole journey of going to, like, this Madara renaissance piece.
Jiji:And then the last move is the looping. And instead of looping, you loop play the loop, and the orchestra goes with your loop. And it's this virtuosic, fun, rock out guitar concerto. So I got to show kind of this, like, you were saying, versatility, and that was, like, really, really pushed me, to be this, like, guitarist and using all these different skills.
Dr. Sinclair:Do you have you played that piece more than once?
Jiji:So I just played it, and then we just we we we we played it once. We did the recording. We have a video out, and then we will play this in 26. 2026.
Dr. Sinclair:Well, when are you going to come back and play that with us?
Jiji:Let's play it. Let's play this. I
Dr. Sinclair:love I love adventurous works like that.
Jiji:Oh, it was so fun. It was it was
Dr. Sinclair:And I'm a fan of his work too.
Jiji:So Oh, he's he is such a fabulous person. I learned so much from him too, and he's really a beautiful person. And then I had another show, which was, like, within, like, 3 weeks of that time. I actually, did 3 shows with an r and b singer. And we put we built this whole set together of our original works.
Jiji:I've never worked with an r and b singer before in writing singer songwriter style music.
Dr. Sinclair:Now do you sing yourself?
Jiji:I don't sing. I sing in my lessons trying to, you know, this is the phrase, folks, but I'm not a good singer. So we we I I wish I did, but, and we so we we we recorded the album, and we're actually in the last stages of mastering. So we're we will be releasing it, but working with him was such a beautiful thing. I've because we he was living in Austin, and I'm living in Indiana.
Jiji:How can we build a set and then So
Dr. Sinclair:you true it's truly acoustical guitar and singer or or electric guitar and singer?
Jiji:Both. We do classical electric guitar, Ableton, softwares, prerecorded things.
Dr. Sinclair:Is there is it just 2 artists or is it
Jiji:Just 2 artists.
Dr. Sinclair:Oh, wow. I can't wait to hear this recording.
Jiji:And we did
Dr. Sinclair:When do you think it'll be released?
Jiji:So we're really pushing for it to be out by next spring, but we will be releasing singles until we do unofficial release.
Dr. Sinclair:I can't wait to hear it.
Jiji:And he's a beautiful, beautiful singer. His name is Daniel Fierce, and I loved working with him.
Dr. Sinclair:Wonderful. Wow. Boy, you've got you have a fascinating career and a fascinating life. Is there anything you'd like to tell us about your concert on Thursday? I know we start with, we're doing a little overture Bach piece, and then we're doing a Vivaldi concerto.
Dr. Sinclair:Those are originally for Lute, I imagine. Yes. That but now it's almost always done by guitar.
Jiji:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a really fun piece. I love Vivaldi.
Jiji:I actually think Vivaldi was a total rock star. And He was. Yeah. I mean, it's a it's like, you know, he when I think of, like, his music making and all these chords and fun things, he's it's a totally rock out pop concert. Yeah.
Jiji:Yes. So you'll hear that, and it's so you get these intimate movements of beautiful and simple lines in the second movement. And the first movement is just so fun. And the third movement, it's like, it's it's one of my favorite pieces to play. I just played it May, so I love coming back to it.
Dr. Sinclair:Good.
Jiji:And then we're playing Iverpaert. I mean, that piece actually, you know, you hear so many different variations of it. You know, you can hear from the violin violin version of it or the harp or piano and the guitar, but I actually heard Barrico play this, and I remember just bawling in my car. I had to stop. I had to I I was driving.
Jiji:I was listening to his recording. I actually have to pull over. I was, like, bawling, and I was like, oh my god. This is the most beautiful piece ever.
Dr. Sinclair:It's stunning. There it's amazing how he gets so much, you know, being a minimalist. Yeah. And how he gets so much out of his own concept of technique. This is to me, he is he's a mystic.
Dr. Sinclair:Yeah. He's as much of a mystic as a composer, and I I I just marvel. Every time I get a chance to put his music on and listen, I just marvel at it. I can't wait to hear that piece.
Jiji:Yes.
Dr. Sinclair:It's it's I was so glad that you programmed it. Yeah. We don't get to do enough of his music. Yes. And, it it it it is so timeless.
Jiji:Yes.
Dr. Sinclair:I mean, it it this could have been you know, he spent a lot of time studying Renaissance and medieval music. Yeah. And and then one of his first big pieces was a choral work. So you hear inspired by chant.
Jiji:Yes.
Dr. Sinclair:And so I hear all that in this piece. And you're right, he's made so many versions of this, which also speaks to that minimalist mindset. Yeah. Yeah. Well, is there anything you'd like to add that you'd like the audience to know about about your work or your playing before this weekend?
Dr. Sinclair:Because I only have one last question. So
Jiji:Yeah. Okay. So the thing I like to say is, like, you're going to hear familiar music and somewhat familiar music and very unfamiliar music, but you'll and I will go on this journey together. And it doesn't matter if you know these pieces or not. You're gonna have a really fun time, and that's the point of it.
Dr. Sinclair:I don't think I need to ask the next question. I mean, I just that summed it up perfectly. I am so grateful that you're coming to share your artistry with us. This is, this is one, one of the great joys of this job is to meet artists like you and to and to to experience your music making. It it makes us all better musicians.
Dr. Sinclair:So thank you again for being with us. I hope that you have as much fun, in Winter Park, Florida as we're gonna have listening to you. Thank you again.
Jiji:See you soon. Thank you.