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Dong-Won Kim is a Korean percussionist, vocalist, composer, and improviser. He has studied Korean traditional music since 1984, including farmers’ drumming and dance, shaman music, and Pansori accompaniment. Dong Won Kim is an internationally recognized master of his form who has performed at the United Nations General Assembly Hall as a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silkroad Ensemble Project. Dong-Won has taught at various institutions internationally including Harvard University, the Musikak-Ademie Basel, Switzerland and currently teaches music as a professor of Wonkwang Digital University.

The music of the Vertical Squirrels is group-improvised, live in the moment, and draws on a unique mixture of free jazz and post rock sensibilities with nods to Indian ragas, jazz-inflected minimalism, Zappa-esque bouts of sonic anarchy, and 70s German rock music. Their debut recording, Hold True, has been released on the prestigious Ambiances Magnétiques label. The CD was the #1 release on the Top 30 Independent Radio Charts on CFRU-FM in Guelph and was also a Critic’s Pick for one of the Top 10 CDs of 2010 in The Montreal Mirror. The Vertical Squirrels are Ajay Heble (piano), Daniel Fischlin (guitars), Lewis Melville (bass), and Ted Warren (drums and percussion).

The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation is a partnered research institute comprised of 56 scholars from 19 different institutions, hosted at the University of Guelph (with project sites at McGill, Memorial, Regina, and UBC). The Institute’s mandate is to create positive social change through the confluence of improvisational arts, innovative scholarship, and collaborative action. www.improvisationinstitute.ca

Musagetes is an international organization that strives to make the arts more central and meaningful in peoples' lives, in our communities, and in our societies. Musagetes works in Guelph, Sudbury, Lecce (Italy), and Rijeka (Croatia) to demonstrate how art can be participatory and socially engaged, to establish a greater sense of belonging in communities. www.musagetes.ca