Shim, Eunmi 1964–

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Shim, Eunmi 1964–

PERSONAL:

Born 1964. Education: Seoul National University, B.M. (magna cum laude), 1987; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, M.M., 1993, Ph.D., 1999.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Humanities and Arts, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Rd., Worcester, MA 01609-2280; fax: 508-831-5932. E-mail—eshim@wpi.edu.

CAREER:

Musician and academician. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, assistant professor of music.

WRITINGS:

Lennie Tristano: His Life in Music, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 2007.

Contributor to Jazz Research Proceedings Yearbook.

SIDELIGHTS:

Eunmi Shim is a musician and professor of music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. Shim earned a bachelor's degree in piano performance from the Seoul National University. She later moved to the United States and completed a master's degree and Ph.D. in musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary research interest is American music, with particular focus on ragtime and jazz history. In 2007, Shim published her first book, Lennie Tristano: His Life in Music. This biography covers the life of Tristano (1919-1978) from his early twenties as a club pianist in Chicago to his death in New York. Critics were harsh on Tristano's personal life and character, labeling him cold and arrogant. However, he worked to improve the standing of jazz music, not as a tool of record companies and a stereotype of people and places, but as an art form.

William G. Katz, an independent book reviewer and reference librarian from the Minnesota State University Library, critiqued Lennie Tristano in a Library Journal review in 2007. He found the biography ‘more respectful’ and complete than many other biographies, noting the ‘thorough research’ behind writing the book. Overall, Katz concluded that Lennie Tristano provides ‘an excellent opportunity to learn’ the many ways this music legend ‘was so important to the evolution of jazz."