Courtesy of Wolftone LLC
An Advanced screening of a Work in Progress
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 7:00pm
Directed by Ty Kim, six-time Emmy Award winning Director and Producer
Admission Free | Reservations Required
Join us for a private, advanced screening of the documentary feature film "Earl." directed by the Emmy award winning director and producer Ty Kim. The screening is hosted by the Consulate General for the Republic of Korea - New York on May 29th at the Korean Cultural Center New York City.
The film is about an American composer named Earl Kim (1920-1998) who grew up in abject poverty and died before his brilliant work was recognized by the public-at-large. His life is an extraordinary, current and relevant story that spans not only the world of classical music, but of education, politics, war, peace, human rights and even weapons of mass destruction. Most of all, the power of music to change lives.
As a child, Earl Kim learned the keyboard from a church organist and later received free piano lessons for seven years from a Los Angeles composer and touring artist. Earl was a prodigy. Through sheer determination and grit, he studied with some of the greatest composers of the modern era including Arnold Schoenberg (at UCLA), Ernest Bloch and Roger Sessions (at UC Berkeley).
His dream of becoming a composer was interrupted by war. Earl was drafted in 1941 and served his country as a US Army Air Force Combat Intelligence Officer. He flew fifty feet above the destruction of Nagasaki, one day after the atomic bomb was dropped. Earl was haunted by what he saw. More than thirty years later, he would use this harrowing experience as fuel to later write a profound musical composition. In 1981, Earl formed Musicians Against Nuclear Arms (MANA) and served as its president for four years.
When Earl returned home from war, he stood up against McCarthyism and was fired by UC Berkeley after refusing to sign the Loyalty Oath. He went on to teach at Princeton (where the documentary film was presented a few weeks ago) for 15 years, and Harvard (where the film will be shown by invitation in March 2025).
In 1961, Earl began his collaboration with the writer Samuel Beckett (who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969). Earl's Violin Concerto was made into an album with the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman, the late Seiji Ozawa and The Boston Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Perlman is one of the artists featured in this new documentary.
The trailer for the new documentary "Earl."
Ty Kim
A Los Angeles-based director, producer and writer. Ty earned six Emmys, the National Edward R. Murrow Award, nine Golden Mikes, the Associated Press award for California, and other awards. Ty worked for years at CBS News with Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley at the television news magazine "60 Minutes". He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and launched a successful consultancy and production company developing feature films, scripted television shows, documentaries, and media ventures. He served on the national board of directors of The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra Foundation (HROF), and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI), and is the founding Emeritus Board Chair and former Chief Operating Officer of The Aronson Cello Festival (ACF) honoring the late Lev Aronson who mentored a generation of artists. Ty heads The Andrew B. Kim and Wan Kyun Rha Kim Family Foundation, Inc. Ty is married to Felicia Paik Kim. They have two children.