Jason Kao Hwang is a Chinese American

Chinese American

Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...

 violinist and composer.

A versatile performer, Hwang focuses primarily on jazz and improvised musics, and has a particular interest in cross-cultural projects. He has been associated with the Asian American jazz

Asian American jazz

Asian American jazz is a musical movement in the United States begun in the 20th century by Asian American jazz musicians.Although Asian Americans had been performing jazz music almost since that music's inception, it was not until the late 20th century when a distinctly Asian American brand of...

 movement and has performed (on violin, electric violin

Electric violin

An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument purposely made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body...

, and electronics) with Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...

, David Murray

David Murray (jazz musician)

David Murray is an American jazz musician. Murray plays mainly tenor saxophone and sometimes bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s.-Biography:...

, Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....

 and the Deep Listening Band

Deep Listening Band

The Deep Listening Band was founded in 1988 by Pauline Oliveros, , Stuart Dempster, and Panaiotis...

, Butch Morris

Butch Morris

Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris is an American jazz cornetist, composer and conductor.-Biography:Before his musical career, Morris served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War....

, William Parker

William Parker (musician)

William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist, poet and composer.-Biography:Parker was not formally trained as a classical player, though he did study with Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis, and Wilbur Ware and learned the tradition. Parker is one of few jazz bassists who regularly plays arco...

, Fred Hopkins

Fred Hopkins

Fred Hopkins was a Chicago double bassist who played a major role in the development of the avant-garde jazz movement. He was a member of the avant garde jazz trio Air and David Murray's Low Class Conspiracy; he frequently worked with the cellist Diedre Murray...

, Milford Graves

Milford Graves

Milford Graves is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, most noteworthy for his early avant-garde contributions in the early 1960s with Paul Bley and the New York Art Quartet...

, Billy Bang

Billy Bang

Billy Bang was an American free jazz violinist and composer.-Biography:...

, Ushio Torikai

Ushio Torikai

Ushio Torikai Ushio Torikai Ushio Torikai (鳥養潮; surname Torikai; is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music.Ushio Torikai is known for her highly individual musical voice, developed over many years of research and compositional experience in diverse musical fields including European...

, Henry Threadgill

Henry Threadgill

Henry Threadgill is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist. Threadgill came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating a range of non-jazz genres....

, Reggie Workman

Reggie Workman

Reginald "Reggie" Workman is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey....

, Diedre Murray

Diedre Murray

Diedre Murray is an American cellist and composer specializing in jazz, improvised music, opera, and contemporary classical music. She is also active as a producer, and curator...

, Leroy Jenkins, and Makanda Ken McIntyre

Makanda Ken McIntyre

Makanda Ken McIntyre was an American jazz musician and composer.-Biography:McIntyre was born in Boston, Massachusetts...

.

Hwang is a founding member of The Far East Side Band, an intercultural ensemble combining Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and American musical elements. He has composed the scores for numerous films and has also worked in the field of commercial music. He was in the original cast of the Broadway production of M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly is a 1988 play by David Henry Hwang loosely based on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer....

, performing music he co-arranged for that production; he later toured with the national productions as a music director.

Hwang has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, the Greenwall Foundation, the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust for his opera Immigrant of the Womb.

His chamber opera

Chamber opera

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...

 The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown

The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown

The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown is a chamber opera by Jason Kao Hwang, to a libretto by Catherine Filloux. It premiered in 2001, directed by Jean Randich and conducted by Juan Carlos Rivas...

premiered in 2001.

Mr. Hwang has recorded for the Axiom

Axiom (record label)

Axiom was a record label founded by musician Bill Laswell in 1989, with the support of Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records. Axiom was an independent subdivision of Blackwell's Island Records, with Laswell being afforded a budget for a certain number of albums each year, basically of his own...

, Celluloid, Columbia, Enja, FMP, New World, Victo, and Asian Improv labels.

See also

• Asian American jazz
  Asian American jazz
  Asian American jazz is a musical movement in the United States begun in the 20th century by Asian American jazz musicians.Although Asian Americans had been performing jazz music almost since that music's inception, it was not until the late 20th century when a distinctly Asian American brand of...