Jason Finkelman

Biography

Jason Finkelman enriches campus and community through dynamic curatorial and educational engagement programming as Artistic Director of Global Arts Performance Initiatives at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and as a Clinical Assistant Professor of the School of Music. In these roles, Finkelman maintains a focus of promoting a culture of music improvisation that bridges student life, academic study, community, and guest performance. His portfolio includes Improvisers Exchange, Global Transfer, and Nick Rudd Music Experience programming.

Founded in 2017 as an annual research initiative of the Center for Advanced Study, Improvisers Exchange has evolved into a multi-dimensional program anchoring Finkelman’s work in presenting concerts, workshops, lectures, and residencies that feature leading artists in improvised music. Along with this programming, Finkelman facilitates a student performance ensemble for the School of Music, exploring what he considers “omni-idiomatic” improvised music, where musicians of all levels and stylistic backgrounds can participate in creating meaningful music together through improvisation.

Students who join Improvisers Exchange Ensemble are introduced to wide ranging concepts and approaches to collective improvisation, as well as listening strategies that holistically enhance musicianship and creative production. Visiting artists appearing in Global Arts programming — which highlights folkloric music traditions of the world, cross-cultural extensions of these forms, avant garde jazz, acoustic and electronic experimental music, and sound ecology — frequently engage directly with students enrolled in Improvisers Exchange Ensemble through workshops and discussions.

Joining the University of Illinois in 2000, Finkelman has provided music accompaniment for the Department of Dance, presented genre-blurring musicians in the Sudden Sound series at Krannert Art Museum, documentary films in the AsiaLENS series, and served as program administrator for the Robert E. Brown Center for World Music, an engagement program of the School of Music from 2012-2023.

Finkelman’s professional work as an artist is focused on improvised music, cross-cultural collaborative projects, and composition for dance, for which he received a New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for Cynthia Oliver’s SHEMAD (2000). Continually performing with a host of inventive improvisers from Urbana Champaign, Finkelman currently leads Kuroshio, an ever-evolving ensemble of Asian and Asian-American musicians exploring identity, culture and diasporic histories through sound and image. Kuroshio’s debut release on Asian Improv Records (2020) features Shu-Cheng Allen Wu and Joy Yang.

Finkelman received a 2019 Advocate ACE Award from the Champaign County Arts Council 40 North | 88 West “for consistently advocating for, creating, and nurturing remarkable partnerships and collaborations between multiple institutions, organizations, programs, and local, national, and international artists, as well as tirelessly supporting, presenting, and promoting our cultural community to audiences across all boundaries with passion, conviction, and creativity.” He also received recognition in 2019 as Best Promoter of the Decade by Champaign-Urbana’s online magazine Smile Politely.