Jen Shyu

Jen Shyu is a vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist whose genre-crossing work draws on the traditional musics of Taiwan, East Timor, South Korea, Indonesia, Brazil, and China, which she studied firsthand as a Fulbright scholar fluent in multiple languages. Born in 1978 in Peoria, Illinois to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrant parents, she trained classically in piano, violin, and ballet before studying theater and opera at Stanford University. A longtime member of saxophonist Steve Coleman's ensembles, she leads her own Jade Tongue group and performs on gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, and piano while integrating movement and voice. Her recordings include Synastry (2011), the first woman-led album released by Pi Recordings, and Sounds and Cries of the World (2015). She was named a Doris Duke Artist in 2016, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition in 2019, and won the Rome Prize in 2024.