Min Xiao-Fen & Julian Kytasty

Few artists have done more to both honor and reinvent the 2000-year history of the pipa than soloist, vocalist and composer Min Xiao-Fen. Classically trained in her native China, she served as a principal pipa soloist at Nanjing Traditional Music Orchestra and was an in-demand interpreter of traditional music before relocating to the United States and forging a new path for her instrument alongside many of the leading lights in modern jazz, free improvisation, experimental and contemporary classical music – a list that includes Wadada Leo Smith, Derek Bailey, Randy Weston, John Zorn, Christian Marclay and Björk.

Julian Kytasty was born in Detroit, Michigan, into a family of Ukrainian refugees who came to the United States after World War II. He is a third generation player of the bandura, a Ukrainian stringed instrument with similarities to the lute and the zither. In 1980 he moved to New York to be the music director of the New York Bandura Ensemble and began a career that has taken him all over the world. As a performer, recording artist, composer, teacher, and ensemble leader, he has redefined the possibilities of his instrument, working cross-culturally with such artists as Chinese pipa player Wu Man, klezmer revivalist Michael Alpert, and Mongolian master musician Battuvshin. In September 2021, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded Julian Kytasty the title “Honoured Artist of Ukraine” in a ceremony in New York City.

The two modern masters have converged for a new project aptly named “Boundless,” a term that concisely describes their wide-ranging explorations both individually and as a border-defying duo.