Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival 2024

AIRMW presents two acts for the first night of the 29th edition of the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival. The evening opens with Chien-An Yuan and Naomi Columna, followed by Francis Wong Ensemble, ft. Tatsu Aoki, Kioto Aoki, Mwata Bowden, Edward Wilkerson Jr., and Mai Sugimoto. Featured on the ensemble program will be selections from Wong's Legends and Legacies II and III projects that explore significant musical moments in his family history in the Chinese diaspora.

Chien-An Yuan is a musician, interdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator based in Ann Arbor, MI.    Yuan runs 1473, a record label specializing in improvisation, electronics, and collaboration. He is also a founding member of IS/LAND, a performance collaborative composed of AAPI movers, artists, and collaborators. Yuan launched the inaugural KYLYN AAPI Arts & Culture Festival in 2024.  His work has been featured in The New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, NewCity, Salon, ArtSlant, Huffington Post, and WNYC. Past performances and exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Elastic Arts, Convivium 33, Detroit Institute of Arts, The Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Gene Siskel Film Center, Museum of Chinese in America NYC, Syrup Loft, Zhou B Arts Center, Asian American Cultural Center of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Hyde Park Art Center.

Naomi Columna is a musician and artist focused on new/experimental works and multidisciplinary collaborations. With a BM in Vocal Performance from the Cleveland institute of Music, and MM in Vocal Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Columna uses her western, classical training as a framework to reference, as well as a medium to manipulate. Columna is frequently featured in CUSP, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project, with performances including a live rescoring of the 1928 silent film, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, for 3 Vocalists and Electronics, as a guest performer in the Jelly Ear ensemble, and in Halumnen, trio for Harp, Voice and Electronic Processing, among others. Through projects supported by SPACES Gallery and the Andy Warhol Foundation, as well as Maelstrom Collaborative Arts, Columna has also composed and directed original works/projects for multidisciplinary ensembles, like DANCING_BANANAS.GIF, for live musicians and video, and Belong To You, for Prerecorded Ensemble, Video Installation, and Live Dancer. Later this year with partner Katalin La Favre, Percussion, will be releasing their debut album of original songs, Mud Window Mud Mirror, for their newly founded duo of the same title, MWMM.

Francis Wong is a saxophonist, composer, bandleader, community organizer, and educator who has deep roots in Asian American communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. He has a decades-long history of performances nationally and internationally as well as an extensive catalog of recordings as leader and sideman. He has been a frequent collaborator with Tatsu Aoki for the last 30 years, often working with Aoki’s cohorts, including Mwata Bowden, Edward Wilkerson Jr., and Kioto Aoki. Wong is excited to work for the first time in this year’s festival with Mai Sugimoto. He is also celebrated for his leadership role as co-founder with renowned pianist and composer Jon Jang of Asian Improv Records and Asian Improv Arts SF. An educator, Wong has been lecturer faculty in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University since 2017.

Follow this year's full CAAJF program here: https://www.airmw.org/aajazz