Gayageum player DoYeon Kim traverses traditions

DoYeon Kim plays gayageum, a Korean plucked zither that resembles the Chinese gǔzhēng, Japanese koto, and Vietnamese đàn tranh. It figures prominently in traditional Korean music, which Kim learned growing up in Korea. Since moving to the U.S., Kim has branched out into jazz and improvised music. She’s a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music’s contemporary improvisation department, where she encountered guitarist Joe Morris. Their duets on 2019’s Macrocosmos (Glacial Erratic) bypass conventional forms in favor of bristling whorls of quick-decaying string snaps, but Kim can also operate persuasively within genres. She worked operatic Korean-language singing into her pugilistic exchanges with drummer Tomas Fujiwara at last year’s Chicago Jazz String Summit, and on her new recor