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All Music Guide:
In addition to issuing several solo albums, flutist and composer Ron Korb has also lent his talents to motion picture soundtracks and other artists recordings. Of Japanese and Canadian heritage, Korb discovered his love of wind instruments from playing the recorder as a child and the flute in his teens, joining an Irish fife and drum band while still in high school and building a deep admiration for jazz music. After graduating with honors from the University of Toronto, Korb discovered a Chinese bamboo flute, which subsequently became his primary instrument of choice. Soon after, Korb recorded his debut album, 1990's Tear of the Sun, with tabla player Donald Quan, which led to Korb moving to Japan in the early '90s to study traditional flutes, where he also recorded his sophomore effort, 1993's Japanese Mysteries. Korb was then hired as a songwriter for the JCM publishing company in Tokyo, where a song he penned for singer Alan Tam became a huge hit and was selected as Best Original Composition by Radio and Television Hong Kong. Korb's interest with different kinds of flutes continued to grow, as his third album, 1994's Flute Traveller, contained 15 different flutes from around the world. For his next release, 1995's Behind the Mask, Korb penned a short story about Indonesian shadow puppet plays, which contained a wide variety of musical styles, including Spanish, Indonesian, Chinese, calypso, and Celtic. Subsequently, Korb penned the music for the Mitra Sen film Just a Little Red Dot and the TV shows Legacy and Emily of New Moon, plus issuing further albums -- Taming the Dragon, Titanic: Odyssey, and Persian Arabesque, the latter credited to a band Korb formed with bassist Donald Quan and pianist Stephen Bacchus. Over the years, Korb has guested on recordings by such artists as Pat Clemence, Mychael Danna, Bruce Mitchell, and Bacchus, among others.
Wikipedia:
Ron Korb is a Canadian flautist, composer, songwriter, and record producer, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is also known as Dragon Flute (Traditional Chinese: 龍笛) in China, Thunder Blessing (Traditional Chinese: 雷恩寇伯 ; pinyin: lái-en-kò-búo) in Taiwan and Prince of Flutes (Japanese: fluto no kikoshi) in Japan
Musical style
Korb is known for writing culturally diverse music and his mastery of a wide array of world music wind instruments. His work spans a range of genres including Classical, Jazz, Latin, Asian, Celtic music, and Middle Eastern. Many of his songs are program music based on stories themes that form concept albums. The concepts often come from his exploration of his multi-cultural ancestry and extensive travel experience.
Education
Ron Korb started on the recorder in grade school and later joined an Irish fife and drum band in his teens. While attending the Royal Conservatory of Music, he won several local music competitions. He attended York University for a year to broaden his experience of playing jazz but later earned a scholarship to study classical flute at University of Toronto where he graduated with a degree in Music Performance. His primary teacher was Douglas Stewart but he also participated in master classes with Paula Robison, Robert Aitken in Shawnigan, Raymond Guiot in Domaine Forget and Michel Debost in Assisi, Italy. After graduating with honors from University, Korb discovered Chinese flutes (Chinese: 笛子, English:Dizi, [pinyin]: dÍ zÎ). The sound of the Asian bamboo flute intrigued him so much that he moved to Japan in the early ‘90s to study Japanese Gagaku court music, the traditional shinobue and ryūteki bamboo flutes with Akao Michiko. Since then he has travelled around the world collecting and studying indigenous flutes. He has a collection of more than 200 flutes.(Instrument Info)
Career
Ron Korb has released 30 solo albums in 20 countries on various record labels. He has also guested on recordings by many renowned artists such as Olivia Newton John, Liona Boyd, Mychael Danna, Renaissance (band), Jim McCarty, Illusion (UK band), and the World Youth Day recording for Pope John Paul. Ron's talents have been employed in many major film and television scores. He has played on many Gemini, Genie and Cannes Film Festival award winning projects and even Academy Award nominated films by directors such as Ang Lee, Atom Egoyan, John Woo, and Mira Nair (for detailed list see IMDb, Internet Movie Database). In Robert Lepage's film Nô Ron played the nohkan on camera in the opening scene dressed in traditional kimono.
Ron has had many collaborations with longtime friend Donald Quan. In 1990 they released Tear of the Sun which charted No. 1 in the Canadian New Age Music Top 40 and in 2001 they did the musical direction for Peter Gabriel's Tribute and Homage for Harbourfront Centre's "World Leaders". The musical talent they shared the stage with included Peter Gabriel, Jane Siberry, Tia Carrere, Arn Chorn-Pond, Jeff Martin, Andy Stochansky and Lorraine Segato. That same year they penned the song for the Toronto Olympic Bid which was performed by the Toronto Symphony, Samba Squad and Nathaniel Dett Chorale in Roy Thomson Hall.
In 2004 Ron Korb Live was released which was filmed in Victoriaville Quebec, directed by Pierre and François Lamoureux and became the first independent artist in Canada to release a full length DVD.
Composing
Other than writing the instrumental pieces for his albums he has also written songs for major Asian singers. His song for Alan Tam (Traditional Chinese:譚詠麟) achieved Double Platinum sales. Another song recorded by the "Godfather of Cantopop" Roman Tam (Traditional Chinese:羅文) won Best Original Composition at the RTHK awards (Radio Television Hong Kong), Hong Kong's equivalent of the Grammys. In 2008 Ron was asked to put together a book of flute and piano pieces for classical flute exams for the Australian Music Examinations Board Flute for Leisure syllabus. Ron has also composed music for film dance and theatre.
Touring
Ron Korb has performed in five continents including venues and events such as: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the World Art Stage in Edinburgh, Arnhem Cathedral in Holland, The Glastonbury Festival in England, Teatro Nacional de Panama, Heian Shrine in Kyoto, Zhong Shan Hall in Taiwan, The Shanghai International Music Festival, The Century Theatre in Beijing and Sun Yet Sen Memorial Hall in Guangzhou, China. Also he represented Canada at Expo 2005 in Nagoya, Japan. In addition, he has been an opening act for Cesária Évora and has toured in China and Canada with world music vocalist Dadawa (Chinese: 朱哲琴, pinyin: Zhu Zheqin)
