Poet, Performer, and Playwright Genny Lim and Composer/Pianist Jon Jang

Part of Celebrating the Beats at Top of the Mark

Genny Lim is a noted poet performer who’s collaborated with the late Max Roach and bassist, Herbie Lewis. Lim has performed at numerous jazz festivals and venues coast to coast, including the SF Jazz Poetry Festival and World Poetry Festivals in Venezuela, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy. Her poetry and vocals can be heard on Asian ImprovArts recordings with her long time collaborators Francis Wong on Devotee and Child of Peace and Jon Jang on Immigrant Suite.  Her collaboration with Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra, A Day of Infamy, premiered in 2015 at Herbst Theater and other SF venues. Lim is also the author of the award-winning play, Paper Angels, the first Asian American play to be featured on PBS’s American Playhouse in 1985. The drama shed light on Chinese immigrants held on Angel Island and will be presented at the Seattle Fringe Festival in Feb and March 2016. She co-authored, Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island and several poetry collections, including Paper Gods and Rebels. Her upcoming collaboration, Liminal Space, with drummer Marshall Trammell is set to premiere at the San Francisco International Performing Arts Festival in May 2106. Lim is the subject of a feature documentary, The Voice, which aired on PBS in 2002; and was featured in the five-part PBS series, The United States of Poetry, and San Francisco Chinatown.

Jon Jang (composer, pianist) created the idea of SenseUS –Rainbow Anthems, a collaboration of poets and composers who collectively reimagine the National Anthem as multiple poems in anthems as opposed to a singular song. This work featured poets Genny Lim, Sonia Sanchez and Victor Hernandez Cruz with musicians Jon Jang, Max Roach, John Santos and a large music ensemble that premiered at Davies Symphony Hall in 1990. Jon Jang has also performed with Amiri Baraka Transbluesency and Janice Mirikitani Shadow in Stone. Jang has recorded with Max Roach, James Newton, David Murray and Island: The Immigrant Suite No. 1 featuring Genny Lim and the Jon Jang Octet on Soul Note, a recording company based in Milano, Italy. His ensembles have toured at major concert halls and music festivals in Europe, China, Canada, United States and South Africa, four months after the election in April 1994 to end apartheid. During 1999-2001, Jang toured with Max Roach as part of the Beijing Trio at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Zurich, Berlin, Milan and the Royal Festival Hall in London. As a scholar, Jang has taught at Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley and UC Irvine. In 2012, Jon Jang was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr.-Cesar Chavez-Rosa Parks Visiting Professor recognition at the University of Michigan.

Celebrating the Beats is a free event, and is happening at the Top of the Mark at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel

999 California Street (at Mason Street)
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 616-6916

MUNI 1 California