9:00 PM Doors, 10:00 PM Show

Jen Shyu - Multi Instrumentalist/Vocals
William Parker - Bass

"Luminescence" is a three day festival presented by Kalia Vandever x Close Up from Feb 27 - Mar 1st 2026. The festival gathers the inventive and imaginative minds of artists who challenge the way we perceive sound, song, and performance. Through conversation, music, and community, you’re invited to experience the visceral and enchanting worlds of these performers over the course of the three day festival.

Jen Shyu is a vocalist, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, Guggenheim Fellow, Rome Prize Fellow, United States Artists Fellow, Doris Duke Artist, and Fulbright Scholar. Born in Peoria, Illinois, to Taiwanese and East Timorese immigrant parents, her instruments include piano, violin, Taiwanese moon lute, Chinese er hu, Japanese biwa, and Korean gayageum. She’s performed with/sung the music of such musical pioneers as Sumi Tonooka, Nicole Mitchell, Val Jeanty, Ikue Mori, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kris Davis, Abigail Washburn, Martha Redbone, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, Francis Wong, Jon Jang, Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, Kenny Barron, Reggie Workman, and Bill Frisell. Shyu has performed her own music at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, BAM, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ojai Festival, Ringling International Arts Festival, National Theater of Korea, and more.
A Stanford University graduate speaking 11 languages, she’s studied traditional music and dance in Cuba, Taiwan, Brazil, China, Korea, East Timor and Indonesia, conducting extensive research culminating in her stage production Solo Rites: Seven Breaths, directed by renowned Indonesian filmmaker Garin Nugroho. She’s produced eight albums and a single as a leader available on her label, Autumn Geese Records, landing on many best-of lists, including The New York Times, Nation, and NPR. She premiered her last solo work Nine Doors in 2017, kicking off a 50-state U.S. tour. She’s currently touring her third solo production Zero Grasses also commissioned by John Zorn. Brooklyn-based, Shyu with Sara Serpa co-founded Mutual Mentorship for Musicians (M³), a radical model of mentorship for underrepresented composer-performers worldwide.

William Parker is a composer, bassist, multi instrumentalist, author and educator who has recorded over 40 albums as a leader and appears on more than 150 recordings. His work spans solo bass, ensembles such as the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and In Order To Survive, and special projects including The Essence of Ellington. Born in 1952 in the Bronx, New York, he has been a vital voice in creative music since the early nineteen seventies and received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in 2013 and the Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024.

He has worked with major artists including Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor and Henry Threadgill. Parker was a member of the Cecil Taylor Unit for more than a decade, and the Village Voice described him as the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time. His recordings as a leader include Oneals Porch, the Raining on the Moon ensemble and the collections Wood Flute Songs and For Those Who Are Still.

Recent highlights include the publication of Observations Selected Works 1967 to 2023, performances at Pierre Boulez Concert Hall in Berlin and the Holocaust Museum in Krakow, Hueys Pocketwatch Big Band at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, the program Ellington in the Morning at BRIC, and the Segue Reading Series at Artists Space in New York with Marina Abramovic. Parker has taught at Bennington College and other institutions, and his books include Who Owns Music, the Conversations series, The Mayor of Punkville and Observations.

Jen Shyu Photo - Daniel Reichert

This event is All Ages

Seating is first-come, first-served; the last 10 spots in the room are standing room. ALL SALES ARE FINAL. WE ARE UNABLE TO ACCOMMODATE SWITCHING SETS OR DAYS.

LUMINESCENCE - Jen Shyu and William Parker - Set 2

LUMINESCENCE - Jen Shyu and William Parker - Set 2