The title of performing composer Rami Seo’s composition, NEXUS, refers to a series of connections occurring concurrently within a given situation. She chose an imagined scene in New York City. Through music making, she asks several pedestrians for travel directions to Time Square, one of the world’s greatest nexus points. Their musical responses indicate their own opinions on how best to arrive in Times Square. Each performer’s instrument represents the different ethnic backgrounds, languages, cultures, and intonations of New Yorkers. They each go their own way, but eventually meet at the nexus point of Times Square. The choice of instruments certainly corresponds to the featured performers of the evening, and the piece was commissioned by the AFMM for this premiere. The Terpstra synthesizer, designed by Siemen Terpstra and built by Dylan Horvath, is set to a 53-tone equal Temperament system. The gayakeum, bassoon and cello have an even larger palette of intervals to choose from.

Rami Seo is an accomplished gayakeum artist whose expansive musical repertoire on the 12-string gayakeum and the 25-string gayakeum spans the traditional and the contemporary to include ancient Korean court music and folk music, as well as current and cross-cultural compositions from across the globe. From Seoul, Korea, Ms. Seo is the protégé of world class maestros and several of Korea’s most revered National Cultural Living Treasure title-holders. She graduated from the prestigious NationalMusicSchool and SeoulNationalHigh School for Korean Traditional Arts with full scholarship and top honors. In 2002, she was Class Valedictorian at Chung-AngUniversity, College of Korean Traditional Performing Arts, where she earned her BM in Korean Traditional Music and Music Education, now in a Graduate program in Ethnomusicology from HunterCollege. Ram is winner of multiple performing arts competitions and has graced many renowned stages throughout the United States, Korea and Japan as a soloist. Major performances include the National Grand Theater of Korea, Korean Traditional Orchestra of Seoul, Korean National Orchestra for Traditional Music, Chung-Ang Orchestra, Ureuk Orchestra, 1988 Seoul Olympics Anniversary Commemoration, Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project for World Music, Asia Society, World Music Virtuosi Concert at Avery Fisher Hall, United Nations, National Folk Festival in Richmond, Virginia, Jeff Fairbanks Jazz Orchestra Concert, Futurism on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of Marinetti’s Manifesto, and the American Festival of Microtonal Music. Rami has released several albums and singles, including First Morning, Fallen Leaves, and Kaya Song. Soon to be released is her Asian Jazz Fusion Concert recording in collaboration with the Jeff Fairbanks Jazz Orchestra. A passionate and inspiring instructor, she is a frequent guest speaker and lecturer at local schools, colleges, cultural workshops and events. A community activist who believes in making the world a better place through music, Rami Seo is the founder and music director of GEMiNY, an emerging gayakeum ensemble for young artists, and the popular percussion group Seven Heaven.