Reviews:

The New York Times on Nine Doors - 5 Standout Shows (Read HERE), "Ms. Shyu turned the stage into a space of imaginative ritual; she framed storytelling and mythmaking as contemporary phenomena — even necessities….That magic remained throughout the set: A simple jazz club stage became a territory of belief, narrative and wonder." - Giovanni Russonello

The New York Times on Nine Doors at Resonant Bodies Festival 2018 (Read HERE), "...Ms. Shyu wove together a dizzying variety of moods. The piece contains music of mourning, dedicated to friends of the composer who were killed in a car accident. There are comic storytelling jaunts that incorporate elements of folklore. Ms. Shyu’s vocal solidity — whether tender and contemplative, or more overtly theatrical - is what made the set cohere. Her sensitive instrumental work (on percussion, piano and Taiwanese moon lute) was a generous bonus." - Seth Colter Walls

Pitchfork on Song of Silver Geese album (Read HERE), “Here, conceptual density and improvisational fire manage to complement, rather than obscure, her overall compositional design. There may never be a genre heading that can do justice to such a method. But that is no great loss. Shyu’s personal language - the product of singular study and many curiosities—can tell her story persuasively on its own.” - Seth Colter Walls

Downbeat Magazine on Song of Silver Geese album (Read HERE), “Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Jen Shyu’s Song of Silver Geese showcases exceptional performance artistry influenced by Shyu’s Taiwanese and East Timorese ancestry, with numerous languages aboard from Shyu’s passionate fieldwork in experimental music and dance….Song of Silver Geese is a cathartic compositional work. The traveling is inward and extroverted, exploring deep emotional connections. Dramatic Indonesian, Javanese, Mandarin, Tetum, Korean and improvisatory vocals are made universal by Shyu. Her captivating vision, melodic spells and abstract pathways connect exquisite compositional balance and solid, tight-knit ensemble interplay.”- Kerilie McDowell

Ballet Review on Nine Doors (Read HERE), "When I interviewed her about Nine Doors, her recent solo work presented by World Music Institute in association with Asia Society at National Sawdust, a venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I told her, “You’re kind of scary.” I was referring to her understated, but overwhelming, genius. In Nine Doors she speaks and sings in eight languages, plays seven instruments, and dances in an astounding flow of organic expression moving from the exquisite, refined movements of Javanese court dance to an earthy, ribald storytelling performance." - Karen Greenspan, Ballet Review Summer 2018 issue.

I Care if you Listen on Nine Doors at Resonant Bodies Festival 2018 (Read HERE), "Shyu showcased her abilities on an impressive array of instruments including the Taiwanese moon lute, Korean gayageum and soribuk drum, Japanese biwa, and piano. This diversity made each movement wonderous and engaging, as the audience was ushered between disparate sound worlds. But most impressive is Shyu’s ability to channel her voice into so many different registers. At times, her voice rang with a full-bodied and resonant quality, and at others it dissolved into a kind of mournful and devastating howling. Shyu is a master storyteller, and captivated the audience with every movement, word, and sound." - Tristan McKay

TheaterScene.net on Nine Doors (Read HERE), “In Jen Shyu, gifts and talents, artistic creativity and keen intellect alternately compete and collaborate. The results [...] are fascinating and thrilling….Shyu’s singing emerges entirely from an organic blurring of styles and traditions that is uniquely her own. Wistfulness, longing, weary sadness and then fragile hope are all conveyed in Shyu’s surprising, flexible voice: earthiness and ephemerality are equally at her command.” –Jean Ballard Terepka

Sydney Morning Herald on Nine Doors + Song of Silver Geese duo with Australian drummer Simon Barker, Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival, Australia (Read HERE), “Often soft and intimate, her singing always [has] a singular clarity, and could be as bright and innocent as a child's eyes….Above all Shyu has the rare ability to make cutting-edge art that seems homespun and quite devoid of artifice.” - John Shand

AU Review on duo with Simon Barker, Wangaratta Jazz and Blues Festival, Australia (Read HERE), “Her voice is incredible; her higher register is matched by a purity in the mid that makes way for an almost subtle growl as she emphasises the chaos and drama of the scenes she describes.” - Sosefina Fuamoli

World Music Report on Song of Silver Geese (Read HERE), “Song of [Silver] Geese is, quite simply, a masterpiece. It is quite unlike anything that has been attempted in any of the artistic realms that it inhabits – from narrative, epic and lyric poetry to a panoply of music from improvised Jazz, traditional Korean, Timorese and Chinese music and dance, as well as modern dance. And it is brilliantly performed by Miss Shyu and, of course, the group of musicians who accompany her on this breathtaking journey. The musical colours are vivid and nothing can prepare the listener for the staggering array of musical textures that arise from a multitude of musical instruments from the West to East. But it is Miss Shyu who absolutely steals the show with the transmogrification that comes from playing so many fascinating and multi-linguistic roles as singer, narrator and finally as a virtuoso instrumentalist on the traditional Taiwanese moon-lute as well.” - Raul da Gama

The Sydney Morning Herald, on Solo Rites: Seven Breaths with Australian drummer Simon Barker, August 20, 2016 (Read HERE) "Jen Shyu's performance utterly clouded any boundaries between east and west, composition and improvisation, music and theatre....Here she was collaborating with Australia's pre-eminent improvising drummer, Simon Barker, the pair having met in Korea, with both being steeped in that country's rich pansori music and story-telling tradition.... When she sang in English, her words had a strikingly oneiric quality, and when she was singing in another language one could revel in her sophisticated vocal control, her flexibility and her tonal beauty.... This was a sensational collaboration that could become even stronger as Shyu approaches the vanishing point on the horizon where genre is discarded altogether."-- John Shand

NPR's Fresh Air (Listen HERE), "Shyu's music is intensely personal. Nothing sounds quite like it...Jen Shyu's music operates in some unpatrolled border zone, blurring lines between folk song and art song, the traditional and the avant-garde, Western and Eastern, between waking consciousness and dream logic. Her album, "Sounds and Cries Of The World" is no drive-by encounter between musical cultures, no cherry picking of exotic licks. This is research and experience, absorbed and reimagined." - Kevin Whitehead

Wall Street Journal, on Pi Recordings' Sounds and Cries of the World, 2015 (Read HERE), "Along with the five languages Ms. Shyu speaks here is an unspoken one—the improvised lingua franca of jazz’s most accomplished musicians that connects her influences and animates her ambitions.... Remarkable as her achievements with her ensemble are, Ms. Shyu is especially riveting on that track ["Song for Naldo"], simply strumming her lute and singing. Her voice, a wonder of technical control and unrestrained emotion, tells a story dotted with well-researched facts and wild poetic allusions. She claims both as her truths."- Larry Blumenfeld

New York Times "Popcast" with Jon Caramanica (Listen HERE)"Jen Shyu, whose new album “Sounds and Cries of the World” comes out this week, is an improvising singer of great accomplishment who leads a band including some of the best improvising musicians in the United States: the trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, the violist Mat Maneri, the bassist Thomas Morgan, the drummer Dan Weiss." - Ben Ratliff

New York Times, on Solo Rites: Seven Breaths at Winter Jazz Fest, 2015 (Read HERE), "The singer Jen Shyu, singing parts of her piece “Solo Rites: Seven Breaths” in Korean and English, playing various lutes and zithers and percussion instruments, combined movement, acting, singing, and playing into long-form songs that could remind you of ancient court music or Joni Mitchell. Everything she did - every turn, every breath - came with mindful emphasis.” - Ben Ratliff

Your Observer News on Solo Rites:Seven Breaths at Ringling International Arts Festival 2015 (Read HERE), "Jen Shyu is a breathtakingly beautiful woman with a vocal technique that would make her the envy of Met Opera stars and a stage presence that is so charming, she makes you gasp with pleasure. Combining languages from Taiwan, Korea, East Timor and a couple of other far-eastern countries, she incorporates English translations into her renditions of folk tales and poems. On the surface, they appear to be of distant cultures, but because of her rare talents as a singer, actor and instrumentalist, she manages to draw us into those realms and feel we’re hearing a story from our own ancestors." - June LeBell

Herald-Tribune Sarasota, on Solo Rites: Seven Breaths at Ringling International Arts Festival 2015 (Read HERE), "The gasps of the appreciative audience were both audible and entirely suitable. What could have been a routine exercise in modern cliché became infinitely meaningful, even therapeutic, in the cumulative impact of an unforgettable performance." - Richard Storm

New York Times (Read HERE), “I suppose there have been other people like JEN SHYU: disciplined vocalists who speak and sing in multiple languages, work with improvisation and composition and movement, feel at home both with quick-change rhythmic patterns and meditative long tones, use narrative poetry as a basis for songs, and use a two-stringed Taiwanese moon lute in a New Yorkish and vanguardish jazz context. I just can't think of any right now. Instead of thinking about her categorically, you can focus on how beautifully and generously she uses sound.” - Ben Ratliff

The Guardian, on Synastry, 2011 (Read HERE)“Shyu is a remarkable phenomenon, shifting registers with startling ease and tonal resourcefulness, moving from conventional pitching to a yodel-like ambiguity without fuss. She blends fragile, light sounds with dark, low notes, ruminative hummings and improv in a personal language that fuses English, Taiwanese, Mandarin and several others.” - John Fordham

 

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL PRESS:

Nine Doors reviews:

• The New York Times review of Nine Doors - 5 Standout Shows HERE
• The New York Times review of Nine Doors at Resonant Bodies Festival 2018 HERE
• Ballet Review Summer 2018 issue HERE
• TheaterScene.net review of Nine Doors HERE
   

Song of Silver Geese album and performance reviews:

• Pitchfork 1/13/18 HERE
• Downbeat 1/18 HERE
• Downbeat “Rising Star Female Vocalist” 8/2017 HERE
• NY Times Best Albums 2017 HERE
• NY Times: The Week’s 8 Best Classical Music Moments on YouTube 11/3/17 HERE
• 2017 NPR Jazz Critics Poll HERE
• NY Times Best Live Jazz Performances of 2017 HERE
• All About Jazz 12/18/17 HERE
• Jazz Trail 11/6/17 HERE
• (Spain) El Intruso 9/28/17 HERE
   

Sounds and Cries of the World album reviews:

• (French) Jazz Magazine France 11/15 HERE
• (Italian) Cultura Commestibile 4/2/2016 HERE
• (Polish) Jazzarium 9/18/2015 HERE
• (Portuguese) Cultura ao Minuto 10/10/2015 HERE
• (Portuguese) Saspo24 10/10/2015 HERE
• (Spanish) El Intruso 10/4/2015 HERE
• (UK) Morning Star 4/19/2016 HERE
• (Japanese) Jazz Tokyo 6/1/2016 HERE

From Taiwan's Hengchun Township to the Stage (Asia Society Texas Center 2015) reviews:

• (Chinese) World Journal 10/25/2015 HERE
• (Chinese) World Journal 11/9/2015 HERE
   

Solo Rites:Seven Breaths reviews:

• (English, Australia) The Sydney Morning Herald 8/20/2016 HERE
• (German) Echo Online 12/1/2015 HERE
• (Spanish) La Vanguardia 12/15/2015 HERE
• (Australian) ABC's Music Show 8/20/16 HERE
• (Portuguese / Angola) 5/7/2016 on Shyu’s Doris Duke Award HERE
• (Tetum / East Timor) 5/5/2016 on Shyu’s Doris Duke Award HERE
• (Polish) 6/23/2016 HERE

Interviews:

Jen interviewed about Mutual Mentorship for Musicians (co-founded by Jen Shyu + Sara Serpa) by LeanIn.org Co-founder and CEO Rachel Thomas February 6, 2021 HERE
Jazz Gallery’s Jazz Speaks by Noah Fishman about Zero Grasses, January 9, 2020 HERE
Jeremiah Cymerman’s 5049 Records Podcast (83 mins), Episode 158, 2018 HERE
Jazz Gallery’s Jazz Speaks by James Kogan, 2018 HERE
Downbeat Magazine, Rising Star Female Vocalist of the Year, by Ken Micallef, 2017 HERE
National Sawdust's Log Journal, by Lara Pellegrinelli, 2017 HERE
Jazz Gallery's Jazz Speaks, by Tamar Sella, 2017 HERE
NewMusicBox, 2015, by Frank J. Oteri HERE
MUSEUM, 2015 HERE
WNYC “Spinning on Air” with David Garland, 2014 HERE
Asia Society “In Focus” interviews, 2014 HERE
All About Jazz interview by Daniel Lehner: “Jen Shyu and Theo Bleckmann: Breaking the Song Barrier,” 2011 HERE
Interview in the book NEW FACE OF JAZZ by Cicily Janus HERE

Features:

NBC News Asian America, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, January, 2017 HERE
NY TIMES Music, Ben Ratliff, September, 2015 HERE
KQED Arts*, Andrew Gilbert: “Exploring the World with Jen Shyu,” 2015 HERE
Blu Notes, Larry Blumenfeld: “Jen Shyu Returns Home & Unpacks Her Ancestry,” 2014 HERE
Jakarta Post*, Ganug Nugroho Adi: “Jen Shyu: ‘Sinden’ with Improvisation,” 2013 HERE
Wall Street Journal, Larry Blumenfeld: “A Singer’s Arrival, in Her Own Words,” 2011 HERE
Downbeat Magazine*, Ted Panken: “Jen Shyu: Transcending Technique,” April 2011 issue HERE

Corrections:

Correction to KQED Arts article:

• “…Jon Jang and tenor saxophonist Francis Wong pointed her to Taiwan [not “Hong Kong”], a move seconded by Steve Coleman….”

Corrections to Jakarta Post article:

• “Bawa Sida Asih,” not “Ilir-Ilir”
• "...of main singer Diana Morales at the repertory theater production of A Chorus Line" [not “production of Diana Morales produced by A Chorus Line”]
• “Jen studied classical singing” [not “semi-classical music”]
• “…became a jazz singer, while working at a small theater,” [not “became a jazz singer at a small theater”]
• “…Jen studied folklore and salsa in Cuba for three weeks and then for one month in 2003” [not “for a year”]
• “…led Jen to musical improvisation and her move to New York City. A year later, she sang on Coleman's album Lucidarium…” [not “she released Lucidarium”
• “…I studied Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese at Wisma Bahsa, and Javanese dance and macapat [sung poetry recitation] at Pujokusuman Studio…” [not “I learned Javanese and macapat [sung poetry recitation] at Pujokusuman Studio]
• “…maestros in Surakarta” [not “Surakara”]
• “…Gambyong Pangkur, which she performed with 5 other senior Javanese dancers at Mangkunegaran Palace on May 4” [not “several foreign dancers at Mangkunegaran Palace on May 5]
• “For two months in 2009, she studied Shuo-Chang… In June, she plans to do a six-month study of Pansori, a epic narrative-song form, in Korea.” [not “In June, she plans to do a six-month study of Shuo-Chang”]

Corrections to Downbeat article:

• It was Stravinsky International Piano Competition, not Bach Competition
• My first CD I produced on my label featuring Francis Wong was called "For Now", not "First Song"
• My second CD "Jade Tongue" was on my own label Chiuyen Music, not on Pi Recordings
• the two-string guitar on my solo project "Inner Chapters" is from Taiwan (called the moon lute, or moon guitar), not from East Timor