“Determined to leave behind the structures and even the allusions of Western music, No World Improvisations deferred instead to the properties of the Pacific Rim traditions…. the music brought heightened awareness to nuances of sound and to suspense within each player’s choices and reactions.” The New York Times

No World Improvisations was a world music ensemble that brought together virtuosi musicians from Asia, Africa, Australia and America and provided a singularly different music experience. No World Improvisations (NWI) performed throughout Asia, North and South America and Europe, including appearances in Moscow, Berlin, Seoul, Paris, Tokyo, Australia, New Zealand and the Kennedy Center/Washington, DC.

NWI’S educational programs and workshops in colleges and schools embraced multi-cultural cooperation, cultural diversity and improvisation featuring the cross-cultural collaborations of musicians Abraham Adzenyah (Ghana), Jin Hi Kim (Korea), Min Xiao-Fen (China), Adam Plack (Australia), and Joseph Celli (USA). The ensemble often times appeared with world musicians from various additional cultures of the world.

No World Improvisations presented performances at colleges, universites and art centers throughout the USA including Tufts, Yale, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and international tours sponsored by the US Department of State, Department of Cultural Affairs to Japan, Germany, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. No World Improvisations was actively touring and performing from approximately 1994 – 2003.

The musicians in NWI perform on a variety of instruments dating back over 3,000 years including double reed folk instruments from India, the world's only electric komungo (developed by Jin Hi Kim), traditional African percussion and the ancient Chinese pipa.

• The Ghanaian percussionist Abrahan Adzenyah has recorded with Bill Cosby and Friends on his jazz recording series appeared with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and toured to over 75 countries as a member of the National Ballet of Ghana. He was on the faculty of Wesleyan University.

• Korean/ American, Guggenheim Fellow Jin Hi Kim appeared as soloist with the Kronos String Quartet at Lincoln Center, presented her new orchestra piece at Carnegie Hall and is the first Korean/American to receive a composition grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and recently from the Rockefeller Foundation. Her performances worldwide are recognized for embodying an Asian grace and aesthetic with a Western sense of adventure and innovation.

• Double reed virtuoso Joseph Celli has worked with John Cage, jazz great Ornette Coleman, composer Tan Dun and is the only wind player to tour with the Kronos Quartet. Celli performs on double reed instruments from around the world including India, Asia and Western instruments about which the Village Voice states, "Celli is (America's) star transformer of the oboe ...he's the premiere oboist...."

• Acclaimed pipa soloist/vocalist Min Xiao-Fen’s music is rooted in Far Eastern traditions, including those of her native China. Ms. Min is a master of the pipa, a four-stringed, pear-shaped lute with a 2,000-year history. Known for her virtuosity and fluid style, she has long sought something beyond classical Chinese music into contemporary directions. Hailed by the Village Voice as an artist who “… has taken her ancient Chinese string instrument into the future,”

Additional Guest Artists have included Mor Thiam (Senegal), Edwin ‘Maguey’ Cedano (Puerto Rico), James Moss (USA), among others.


“…No World Improvisations explored the lively edge-music of a culture that never was but might have been….trips into uncharted regions….tender, deliberate, pointillistic, uniting musics across acoustic traditions….” Village Voice