In the GreeKorea project, the members of the Gugak Jazz Society and Pharos Ensemble explore to create new musical idioms that respectfully transform Korean and Greek musical traditions in the jazz platform.  This projects will be presented as a musical documentary and the corresponding album in February 2021.  In response to the COVID-19 and the new coming year, the participating artists are hoping to deliver hopeful and positive messages in a very special and unique way to people who have been struggling at various levels. 
*This project is sponsored by Arts Council Korea (ARKO).  
​Pansori is a form of musical storytelling in Korean traditional music, and in Pansori Jazz Cantata, created by Mina Cho, a story is dramatically expressed by a Pansori singer with the help of a jazz orchestra and Korean traditional instruments.  The three primary components of Pansori––narration, singing, and dramatic action––correspond with recitative, aria, and choral parts in a western cantata, and a jazz orchestra with a classical orchestra.  Mina's first Pansori Jazz Cantata tells the story of a blind Pansori singer named Gilryung in conjunction with the Passion of Christ according to St. Matthew.

While there have been various and creative collaborations between Gugak (“Korean traditional music”) and jazz and popular music over the years, the incorporation of a jazz orchestra in Pansori is unprecedented except for my Pansori Jazz Cantata piece “The Dream of Gilryung,” which was premiered in Boston (partially at Tufts University and entirely at New England Conservatory) in the fall of 2019.  The Gugak Jazz Society members came to Boston to premiere the piece collaborating with several local artists and the NEC Jazz Composers’ Workshop Orchestra. 

Mina is currently working on her second Pansori Jazz Cantata named Blue Café 1939 (청춘다방 1939).