Ron Korb: straddling two worlds

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Spring, 1997 by Robert Hoshowsky

After graduating from the University of Toronto in flute performance, the half-German, half-Japanese Korb travelled to Japan, where he studied bamboo flute and deepened his knowledge of the rich history and folklore of the Far East.

"When I heard the bamboo flute for the first time, it was as if I had come home," he says. "Japanese bamboo flutes are a bridge between my musical training and my cultural heritage, and give me the opportunity to create a niche for myself. They are also well suited to the kind of music I like to write and play."

After returning to Canada from the land of his ancestors, Korb and Loreena McKennitt sideman Donald Quan released 1990's Tear of the Sun. A medley of flutes, exotic percussion and keyboards with influences ranging from Asian to Middle East to Jazz, the CD became an immediate success, and soared to No. 1 in the New Age Top 40 chart. It was inspired by myths about Amaterasu Oomikami, the fabled Japanese Sun Goddess.

"The Japanese myth is about the day the Sun Goddess is angry at her brother, the Wind," says Korb. "She hides in a cave, and the world goes into darkness. They try to lure her out with music and by making lots of noise, and nothing works. They finally say, 'There's this beautiful princess out here,' and hold a mirror up to the cave. The princess is curious to see someone as beautiful as her, and she looks in the mirror, and her own reflection draws her out of the cave. And then they tie a rope across the cave, so she can't go back in." There is a Shinto shrine located at the cave where Amaterasu is said to have disappeared, and even to this day, a symbolic paper rope is stretched across its entrance.'

Since Tear of the Sun, Korb has released Japanese Mysteries, Flute Traveller, and Behind the Mask, an album he composed, produced, and based on his own short story.

"Behind the Mask is an extension of what Tear of the Sun was," says Korb. Tear of the Sun is an album that uses a lot of different influences from different countries, different cultures, and also was based on a story. I wanted to expand on that idea, but I wanted to do something that had a lot more impact, and use a real band, real instruments, and try to keep it as authentic as possible, and reach out to a wider audience with it."

Korb's sound defies musical boundaries, and has been referred to as New Age, World Music, and Contemporary Instrumental. Most dominant are Asian elements and traditional instruments, which Korb blends with Western music.

"My goal is not to show how strange these instruments are, but how beautiful they can sound," he says. "Everyone likes to hear a new sound in the context of a good melody. In Japan, they've had Western classical music for some time now, so most people listen to some form of Western music. In fact, it is more popular than their own traditional forms of music. When a foreigner like myself is composing music using traditional Japanese instruments, in many ways it has a fresh angle to Japanese and Western audiences alike."

For Behind the Mask, Korb harmonized Indonesian, Asian, Celtic, Caribbean and Spanish influences with contemporary pop rhythms to accompany his story of a prince, a princess, magicians and hypnotizing shadow puppets. It is an allegory on TV, and the puppeteers' manipulation of our minds through images.

Aside from being a bit of a musical departure for Korb, Behind the Mask was recently made into a successful childrens' play at Toronto's Inner Stage, and some of the tracks were used for the score of Mitra Sen's new film, Just a Little Red Dot. The former first Assistant Director on Liberty Street, Sen heard Behind the Mask, loved it, and phoned Korb in Japan, where he was doing a concert tour. "She wanted my music because it's a mix of East and West, and that's what the film is about," says Korb. Although Just a Little Red Dot was the first time Korb was asked to score a film, his flute music has appeared on several TV series, including The Rez, and is heard on the soundtracks to feature films like Atom Egoyan's Exotica, and the upcoming Kama Sutra.

Although he is making a name for himself in film, Korb still prefers performing live in front of an audience. He does this with the other four members of the Kappa Band, a group he formed soon after the release of Japanese Mysteries. The name Kappa refers to a Japanese mythological creature that inhabits rivers and streams, and looks a lot like a modern-day Ninja Turtle.

While Korb plays bamboo flutes and exotic woodwinds, his musicians play both traditional and more eclectic instruments. Ray Hickey Jr. plays guitar, koto, shamisen and pipa; Richard Brown plays bass and shamisen; Bill Evans plays piano and Hammond organ, and Larry Crowe handles drums. While the band works exceptionally well as a unit, each member demonstrates his own personality, like Brown, who often cracks little jokes during performances.

Korb and Kappa members have performed at venues as intimate as Toronto's C'est What?, The Smithsonian Institution, and all the way to the Gaiasphere at England's prestigious Glastonbury festival. Drawing over a quarter of a million people each summer, Glastonbury is Britain's biggest summer music festival, and attracts performers like Oasis, The Cure, Plant and Page, Sinead O'Connor, The Black Crowes, Van Morrison, The Orb, and the Velvet Underground.