Download Ron Korb, Flutist and Composer

Ron Korb, Flutist and Composer
Flutist Ron Korb has been travelling for years collecting and studying indigenous
woodwinds from Japan, China, Indonesia, Cambodia and Ireland. His music is
steeped in the diverse cultural traditions and experiences of his travels reflecting
jazz, Japanese, Chinese, Celtic, and Latin influences.
Ron Korb was born in Canada. As a child, Ron was enchanted by the sound of
the flute. However, he didn't get an opportunity to explore an instrument until he
was eleven when he played the recorder in school. His teachers and classmates
soon discovered that Ron had a natural talent to play by ear and create
melodies.
One of Ron's first performance experiences was playing in an Irish fife and drum
band in high school. The jigs, reels and ballads that he played were the
foundation of his appreciation of Celtic music. During his teens, Ron also
collected jazz records and often went to see the jazz legends in concert. This
experience is reflected in many of his compositions, which are a hybrid of jazz
and world music.
When he was in his teens, most of Ron's peers thought that he would become a
visual artist or filmmaker. All his life, Ron had demonstrated strong ability in his
painting and drawing classes but like so many young artists, his form of
expression, in this case - the flute, chose him. Nonetheless, many people
consistently remark that when listening to Ron Korb's music, very strong visual
images are evoked - an influence that comes from this part of his life. Later on,
Ron's sense of visual artistic expression and his love of film would become
evident in his Ron Korb Live DVD. Ron meticulously storyboarded each and
every sequence and succeeded in creating some succulent eye candy for his
viewers.
As Ron began taking flute lessons, he was drawn more and more into the world
of classical music. He commenced studies with Douglas Stewart and won a
scholarship to study at The University of Toronto, Faculty of Music. He graduated
with honors with a bachelor's in flute performance.
Ron has taken master classes with Robert Aitken, Paula Robison and Michel
Debost. However, by 1988 the classical flute no longer interested Ron as it had
in prior years. Coming upon a Chinese bamboo flute by chance, he knew
immediately he had found his new voice. Soon after he recorded his first album
with Donald Quan entitled Tear Of The Sun and introduced this flute on several
tracks.
His interest in bamboo flutes grew, Ron decided to live in Japan and formally
study the traditional flutes. He was fortunate enough to study with a well known
master Michiko Akao who taught him the intricacies of Japanese court music
Gagaku and many of the bamboo flutes which he would later use in his
recordings. He was also fortunate to befriend many great traditional musicians
such as shakuhachi players like John Kaizan Neptune and Tani Senzan and to
be exposed to new playing styles. Ron Korb was both discovering his cultural
heritage and who he was as a musician.
While in Japan he made his second recording, Japanese Mysteries, with
composer/musician Hiroki Sakaguchi. Each piece of this album was about an
aspect of Japanese culture that Ron had experienced. The album was recorded
in both Tokyo and Osaka and utilized an amazing group of musicians of both
traditional Japanese and conventional western instruments.
At the same time as writing the music for Japanese Mysteries, Ron worked as a
song writer for the publisher JCM in Tokyo. In Asia, he composed music for
major artists like Alan Tam, Stephanie Lai and Yvonne Lau. One of the songs he
composed for singing sensation Alan Tam reached double platinum status.
Another was recognized as Best Original Composition by Radio and Television
Hong Kong (RTHK).
After Japan, Ron travelled to many other countries in his search of rare
woodwind instruments, taking time to study with local master musicians when the
opportunity presented itself. The result was an album called Flute Traveller which
explored fifteen different flutes from around the globe. In his Instrument
Collection, you can learn about these instruments which Ron still uses to create
his music. Over the years, in his travels, Ron has collected over 100 flutes from
around the world.
For his next album, Behind The Mask, Ron wrote a short story about the
Indonesian shadow puppet plays. To further develop the mythic storyline and get
a feeling for the music he traveled to Java and Bali. The album was an ambitious
project that used world music styles from around the world as diverse as
Spanish, Indonesian, Chinese, Calypso and Celtic. Before recording, Ron
performed frequently with his band to not only iron out the material in front of an
audience but also to give the music an assurance and energy when recording in
the studio.
Since then, Ron has composed the music for Just A Little Red Dot, a film by
Mitra Sen. This film went on to win awards for best educational and multicultural
film at the New York Festival and also a Grand Prize at the Bombay Film
Festival. Ron has played on dozens of CDs and motion picture soundtracks
including Being Julia, Return To Kandahar, The Ice Storm, Earth Final Conflict,
and Atom Egoyan's Exotica.
In a sequence in which the main characters are watching a Noh play, Ron
appears on camera dressed as a Noh Flute Player in the Robert Lepage movie
"Nô". The film won the award for best Canadian Feature Film at the 23rd. Annual
Toronto Festival of Festivals. Ron and fellow musician, taiko player Gary Nagata,
attended the screening of the movie at the film festival and performed together at
a reception for Mr. Lepage.
For the past few years Ron Korb also has been mastering the Irish instruments
like the low whistle and penny whistle and has been playing these instruments on
many albums and television shows like Legacy and Emily Of New Moon. Ron's
Celtic Heartland album features original Celtic themes.
In the fall of 2004, Ron was the creative consultant for the on-camera flute work
for the "Do Die, Who I Am?" episode of the TV series Wild Card. Ron provided
personal coaching to Willie Garson and a child actor so that they could play the
flute convincingly in long shots. Ron was Mr. Garson's double on set for flute
close ups.
In October, 2004, Ron released his brand new Ron Korb Live CD and Ron Korb
Live DVD, featuring music recorded at his Mont Arthabaska concert. This concert
consists of many of the most popular tunes from his albums including Behind The
Mask and Celtic Heartland and some new previously unreleased material.
In 2005, Ron played on several new film and TV projects including Saint Ralph,
Whiskey Echo, Missing starring Vivica Fox, and the soon to be released White
Countess, a Merchant/Ivory Production starring Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave.
Some of Ron's recent gigs have included:
 an appearance at Toronto's Harbourfront in July with Chinese singing
sensation Dadawa (Zhu Zhe Qin)
 performances with the Lord of the Rings Symphony in Kitchener-Waterloo
and at Toronto's Roy ThomsonHall
In September,2005, Ron deparedt for an extensive tour of Asia that will take him
to Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Highlights of this tour include
appearances at Expo 2005 in Japan and the opening ceremony for the annual
Kaoshiung County Festival in Taiwan.