Cincinnati, OH
Eddy Kwon is a composer-performer and community-based teaching artist living in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Eddy is Co-Founder and Director of MYCincinnati, a tuition-free, El Sistema-inspired youth orchestra program for children in the diverse Price Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati, where he also lives. Currently engaging over 100 children for at least 2 hours every day after school, MYCincinnati’s mission is to use ensemble-based music education as a vehicle for youth development, community engagement, and social change. He is also Director of MYCincinnati’s Ambassador Ensemble, a radical youth sextet committed to social justice through creative collaboration and avant performance.
Recent composition commissions include VIOLENCE, a performance work for electro-acoustic ensemble that explores structural violence in America, and a r c h i p e l a g o, a unison piece for electric string quartet experiencing intense sensory deprivation (Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, 2014-15).
As a performer and improviser, Eddy has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, including Jens Lekman, Awadagin Pratt, Martha Colburn, and JP Bouvet. He is also a founding member of The Happy Maladies, a string quartet with roots in American folk, classical chamber music, and experimental rock.
Eddy is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he was a Cincinnatus Presidential Full Scholar, studying both violin performance and jazz improvisation. In 2014, he was awarded the City of Cincinnati’s Art Ambassador Fellowship.
