Ron Korb, Flutist and Composer

Ron Korb, Flutist and Composer

Flutist Ron Korb has been travelling for years collecting and studying indigenous woodwinds from Japan, China, Indonesia, Cambodia and Ireland. His music is steeped in the diverse cultural traditions and experiences of his travels reflecting jazz, Japanese, Chinese, Celtic, and Latin influences.

Ron Korb was born in Canada. As a child, Ron was enchanted by the sound of the flute. However, he didn't get an opportunity to explore an instrument until he was eleven when he played the recorder in school. His teachers and classmates soon discovered that Ron had a natural talent to play by ear and create melodies.

One of Ron's first performance experiences was playing in an Irish fife and drum band in high school. The jigs, reels and ballads that he played were the foundation of his appreciation of Celtic music. During his teens, Ron also collected jazz records and often went to see the jazz legends in concert. This experience is reflected in many of his compositions, which are a hybrid of jazz and world music.

When he was in his teens, most of Ron's peers thought that he would become a visual artist or filmmaker. All his life, Ron had demonstrated strong ability in his painting and drawing classes but like so many young artists, his form of expression, in this case - the flute, chose him. Nonetheless, many people consistently remark that when listening to Ron Korb's music, very strong visual images are evoked - an influence that comes from this part of his life. Later on, Ron's sense of visual artistic expression and his love of film would become evident in his Ron Korb Live DVD. Ron meticulously storyboarded each and every sequence and succeeded in creating some succulent eye candy for his viewers.

As Ron began taking flute lessons, he was drawn more and more into the world of classical music. He commenced studies with Douglas Stewart and won a scholarship to study at The University of Toronto, Faculty of Music. He graduated with honors with a bachelor's in flute performance.

Ron has taken master classes with Robert Aitken, Paula Robison and Michel Debost. However, by 1988 the classical flute no longer interested Ron as it had in prior years. Coming upon a Chinese bamboo flute by chance, he knew immediately he had found his new voice. Soon after he recorded his first album with Donald Quan entitled Tear Of The Sun and introduced this flute on several tracks.

His interest in bamboo flutes grew, Ron decided to live in Japan and formally study the traditional flutes. He was fortunate enough to study with a well known master Michiko Akao who taught him the intricacies of Japanese court music Gagaku and many of the bamboo flutes which he would later use in his recordings. He was also fortunate to befriend many great traditional musicians such as shakuhachi players like John Kaizan Neptune and Tani Senzan and to be exposed to new playing styles. Ron Korb was both discovering his cultural heritage and who he was as a musician.

While in Japan he made his second recording, Japanese Mysteries, with composer/musician Hiroki Sakaguchi. Each piece of this album was about an aspect of Japanese culture that Ron had experienced. The album was recorded in both Tokyo and Osaka and utilized an amazing group of musicians of both traditional Japanese and conventional western instruments.

At the same time as writing the music for Japanese Mysteries, Ron worked as a song writer for the publisher JCM in Tokyo. In Asia, he composed music for major artists like Alan Tam, Stephanie Lai and Yvonne Lau. One of the songs he composed for singing sensation Alan Tam reached double platinum status. Another was recognized as Best Original Composition by Radio and Television Hong Kong (RTHK).

After Japan, Ron travelled to many other countries in his search of rare woodwind instruments, taking time to study with local master musicians when the opportunity presented itself. The result was an album called Flute Traveller which explored fifteen different flutes from around the globe. In his Instrument Collection, you can learn about these instruments which Ron still uses to create his music. Over the years, in his travels, Ron has collected over 100 flutes from around the world.

For his next album, Behind The Mask, Ron wrote a short story about the Indonesian shadow puppet plays. To further develop the mythic storyline and get a feeling for the music he traveled to Java and Bali. The album was an ambitious project that used world music styles from around the world as diverse as Spanish, Indonesian, Chinese, Calypso and Celtic. Before recording, Ron performed frequently with his band to not only iron out the material in front of an audience but also to give the music an assurance and energy when recording in the studio.

Since then, Ron has composed the music for Just A Little Red Dot, a film by Mitra Sen. This film went on to win awards for best educational and multicultural film at the New York Festival and also a Grand Prize at the Bombay Film Festival. Ron has played on dozens of CDs and motion picture soundtracks including Being Julia, Return To Kandahar, The Ice Storm, Earth Final Conflict, and Atom Egoyan's Exotica.

In a sequence in which the main characters are watching a Noh play, Ron appears on camera dressed as a Noh Flute Player in the Robert Lepage movie "Nô". The film won the award for best Canadian Feature Film at the 23rd. Annual Toronto Festival of Festivals. Ron and fellow musician, taiko player Gary Nagata, attended the screening of the movie at the film festival and performed together at a reception for Mr. Lepage.

For the past few years Ron Korb also has been mastering the Irish instruments like the low whistle and penny whistle and has been playing these instruments on many albums and television shows like Legacy and Emily Of New Moon. Ron's Celtic Heartland album features original Celtic themes.

In the fall of 2004, Ron was the creative consultant for the on-camera flute work for the "Do Die, Who I Am?" episode of the TV series Wild Card. Ron provided personal coaching to Willie Garson and a child actor so that they could play the flute convincingly in long shots. Ron was Mr. Garson's double on set for flute close ups.

In October, 2004, Ron released his brand new Ron Korb Live CD and Ron Korb Live DVD, featuring music recorded at his Mont Arthabaska concert. This concert consists of many of the most popular tunes from his albums including Behind The Mask and Celtic Heartland and some new previously unreleased material.

In 2005, Ron played on several new film and TV projects including Saint Ralph, Whiskey Echo, Missing starring Vivica Fox, and the soon to be released White Countess, a Merchant/Ivory Production starring Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave. Some of Ron's recent gigs have included:

an appearance at Toronto's Harbourfront in July with Chinese singing sensation Dadawa (Zhu Zhe Qin)

performances with the Lord of the Rings Symphony in Kitchener-Waterloo and at Toronto's Roy ThomsonHall

In September,2005, Ron deparedt for an extensive tour of Asia that will take him to Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Highlights of this tour include appearances at Expo 2005 in Japan and the opening ceremony for the annual Kaoshiung County Festival in Taiwan.