CRS Presents Crossing Boundaries 25: When the Ancestors Speak by Jen Shyu, Sumi Tonooka, and Val Jeanty

CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents Crossing Boundaries 25: When the Ancestors Speak on Sunday, December 14, 2025, at 7 pm at Greenwich House Music Hall. Curated by Jen Shyu, this work by Jen Shyu (vocals, Taiwanese moon lute, Japanese biwa, Korean gayageum), Sumi Tonooka (piano), and Val Jeanty (SoundChemist) explores the theme of immigration, growing out of their own rich multi-ethnic family and musical histories, from Africa, Japan, Timor, Taiwan, Haiti, and beyond. This concert mixes music with movement and text, further developing material which was first introduced during Jen Shyu’s 2023 residency at The Stone and expanded upon that fall in Crossing Boundaries 20. (Trio photo by Mariana Meraz)

ABOUT CROSSING BOUNDARIES CONCERT SERIES

CROSSING BOUNDARIES is a concert series devoted to dissolving boundaries between performers and audiences, the traditional and contemporary, classical and experimental, and the culturally specific and the global. Series curators are empowered to create unique performance events in collaboration with musical, visual, and/or movement artists of their choosing. The series was conceived in 2018 by the Korean traditional wind player and composer gamin, who has continued to help curate the series each year. https://crsny.org/crossing-boundaries-concert-series/

Crossing Boundaries is made possible in part with funds from Creative Engagement, a regrant program administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) and supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. LMCC empowers artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Manhattan and beyond.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rome Prize, Guggenheim, and USA Fellow, Doris Duke Artist, multilingual multidisciplinary artist Jen Shyu was born in Peoria, Illinois to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrants. She has produced eight albums and a single available on her record label Autumn Geese Records. She’s performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Theater of Korea, Rubin Museum, was named Downbeat’s 2017 Rising Star Female Vocalist, and is a Fulbright scholar speaking 10 languages. She’s worked with such musical innovators as Sumi Tonooka, Terri Lyne Carrington, Nicole Mitchell, Val Jeanty, Ikue Mori, Zeena Parkins, Linda May Han Oh, Kris Davis, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Dresser, Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Vijay Iyer, Kenny Barron, Reggie Workman, Bill Frisell, and Immanuel Wilkins. Her “Song of Silver Geese” was among The New York Times’ “Best Albums of 2017.” Her third solo production and album “Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses” (commissioned by John Zorn) has received wide critical acclaim, with “When I Have Power” NPR’s “Best Songs of 2021.” She is a Paul Simon Music Fellows Guest Artist, a Steinway Artist and co-founder with Sara Serpa of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians). @jenshyu, https://www.jenshyu.com

2023 Pew Fellowship Awardee Sumi Tonooka has been called a “fierce, fascinating composer pianist” Jazz Times “provocative and compelling” New York Times. With 15 recordings to her name and a vast catalogue of compositions and award winning works in genres symphonic, chamber, dance and film, she continues to be a creative force. Recently, Tonooka was a winning finalist for the Emerging Black Composers Project to compose her fourth symphony, Only The Midnight Sky and Silent Stars premiered by the San Francisco Conservatory in February 2023. She is also a 2021 recipient of the Doris Duke, Creative Inflections Grant, with vocalist/composer Jen Shyu, for In The Green Room, inspired by the stories of Asian and African American women in Jazz. She was awarded the Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grant in 2019, premiering later this year for her trio plus Alchemy Sound Project, a composers collective that she started in 2015. @sumitonooka, http://sumitonooka.com

Val Jeanty is a Grammy-winning Afro-Electronica composer, turntablist, and SoundChemist whose work bridges ancestral Haitian Vodou traditions with experimental electronic soundscapes. A professor at Berklee College of Music, Jeanty has performed at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and internationally at the Venice Biennale in Italy and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. A recipient of the 2024 United States Artists Fellowship, the 2019 NYSCA/Roulette Residency, and the 2022 NYC/CBA Toulmin Fellowship, Jeanty continues to expand the frontiers of sonic expression while honoring her Haitian heritage. @valjeanty, https://val-inc.bandcamp.com/