“Greensleeves” is a folk song from England circa the late 16th Century. The lady wears green, so the gentleman clothes all his men in green in chivalrous tribute. He only wants her love, and yet, despite all his favors and his granting of all the lady would crave, she would not love him. He resorts to prayer.

Greensleeves [live at 일민 미술관]

"temper clay" from the film TEMPER CLAY by Sung Hwan Kim.

text from William Shakespeare's KING LEAR arranged by Sung Hwan Kim

What is the cause of thunder?
Thunder Thunder
Howl
Blow
winds and rain
Is there any cause in nature
that makes these hard hearts?
See what breeds about
her heart
Strike
her young bones
From her
derogate
body
never spring a babe to honor her
Old
fond eyes Beweep
this
cause
again
I’ll
pluck ye out And cast you with the waters that you loose To
temper
clay.

temper clay

text by Sung Hwan Kim

a live performance at Ilmin Museum in Seoul, 2013

featuring a quote from Charles Ives' Symphony No. 2

I want my children to be independent
My workers work for me
My surroundings will serve me
Or my surroundings will serve the people Whom my idea wants properly served
When my body starts to operate the way I planned
When my body starts to realize my idea When my body starts to operate the way
I planned
When my body moves to realize just one
idea
I start to think and my body starts to feel Pain
Discomfort
Shame
That my body moves not the way I want it to move
now
But the way that I wanted it to move five minutes ago
That my mouth speaks a speech not what I want it to speak
now
But the way I wanted it to speak a while ago
각주구검 [ gak jju gu geom ] It’s not what I want

각주구검 [gak-jju-gu-geom] my body moves [live at 일민 미술관 Seoul]

Here is the only existing live recording of this work.

O swiftly fading daguerreotype
in my more slowly fading hands

Somebody told me in my dreams
that I was patient
very patient

It was the townsfolk
They gave me advice

The voices at the beginning is Matt Infante.  JiEun Rim was dancing with me and holding the autoharp while I played it.  The text is on a poem by R.M. Rilke.

swiftly fading daguerreotype

Based on the Korean gut ritual performed by 김금화 as recorded by 김성환 in 2000.  Song contains a short excerpt of this ritual.  Voice at the beginning is Yoon Jin Kim.

From radio work commissioned by Bayerischer Rundfunk 2 (BR2).  The full work, HOWL BOWEL OWL, is available at the Bayerischer Rundfunk website.

This song is a setting of a lyrical translation of the ritual by Sung Hwan Kim.

What is a mechanical fan?
What does it consist of?
Do fans make noise?
Are the blades in the fan dangerous?
What is fan death?

An electric fan left running overnight
in a closed room
can cause the death of those sleeping inside.

Left running overnight in a closed room
can cause the death of those
sleeping inside.

Sleeping inside.
Can cause the death of those
in a closed room
left running overnight.

Let us out for the breeze outdoor
Let us go out for out there they call 
On black earth stand brighter people 
We will loom over and aid them
Were there a foe in mind you kept 
Let them loose and your love will fall
together
Let us go out for out there they call 
Let us out for the breeze outdoor 
Come follow me
To open the closed gate
to the road y’ll come follow that is raw and long along 
The road you will tread with the big spirit back
You will go and find no end Have you gone —
then you’ll go again
Just come follow me
On this road you walk
stones and rocks are in rooted 
There are thorns in bushes
Climb the mountain 
Tread the water 
Water deep
Water shallow 
Water cold
Water warm 
All is there
If this road wearies you birth strength;
lend courage
Hammer away all hardship 
Win and carry on
See far
Own strength 
Resolve your heart 
Imprint in that heart the path that you tread
￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼￼You must needs walk see high 
You must needs walk think deep
If your eyes are on the front leave them to see your path 
If your eyes are on the side leave those lids closed
You must need knead your mind for your path is high yet so low so low that ‘tis deep
For you will wither after this path 
For you will fall after you wither
but if you wither then spring up
For you will fall more after you spring but if you fall more then spring more
Then you will again fall more.
Then spring up more again and once more
Fall again after your last fall 
Rise again after your last fall
Between these falls appear a place for you to stand
Come this way 
Come away near 
This much here
Catch this well
You must needs catch this well

howl bowel owl

call and response in two tongues

Text by Sung Hwan Kim 김성환 
from the performance WATERMELON SONS directed by Sung Hwan Kim in musical collaboration with dogr aka David Michael DiGregorio

a quotation from a conversation between dogr and Sung Hwan Kim in the book SUNG HWAN KIM: TALK OR SING: 
"On 'serial gestures'
SHK: I was reading GHOSTS by César Aira.  He only writes
short novels. He doesn’t make compilations because he thinks of short novels as an independent format. I got to know him through reading Roberto Bolaño, who regarded Aira as one of his favorite writers. In GHOSTS, Aira talks about architecture. He envisions the city (Buenos Aires) filled with different types of architecture: architecture that was there, architecture that could have been there, architecture in a changed format co-existing with the other.
The story is about a Chilean immigrant family living in Argentina. The father works as the superintendent of a condominium under construction in which he lives with his family. The other creatures in the building are ghosts. The family sees these ghosts, and there is no question about whether or not these ghosts should be feared. They just co-exist. In this song, the line 'when she goes up, she walks through concrete' is Aira’s line from the story, and I make up other images I see when I read between the lines."




when she goes up she walks through concrete

walking around letting in air like ideas

some are useful 

send them to the bureaus

where heart births another heart

it is all mine

these limbs and nods

they will work the day

to feed the others

and my guilt

for not being better

as told

ahead in Myths.

serial gestures [live]

This is "Silver & Goldogr" aka "Silver & Goldger" aka "Silver & Goldodger" aka "Silver & Gold" aka "Silbu & Golby" by wunderkind Johnny Marks.

Silver & Gold

The mist keeps falling
Creation mist

The mist is curtains
The mist is curtains grey
Curtains grey

Ē pāpā, haʻohaʻo nui wau iā Māmā i kēia lā
i kēia lā
______________________________________



A Record of Drifting Across the Sea (research process, specifically in reading The Folding Cliffs)
Performed in Read Aloud Lyrics at Barakat Contemporary, Seoul, August 30, 2022. 

Various foreign diseases introduced to Hawaiʻi precipitated a population collapse, in which an estimated ninety percent of the Hawaiian people were decimated in under seventy years, roughly from the 1780s through the 1840s. Due to the introduction of leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease, many Hawaiian families were separated overnight due to strict quarantine measures during the nineteenth century.

New York-born poet William Stanley Merwin moved to the Hawaiian Islands in 1976, settling on an old pineapple plantation on Maui, where he restored the surrounding rainforest. He died in Maui in 2019 at the age of 91. Merwin published an epic poem called The Folding Cliffs in 1998. Merwin based this poem on a 1906 Hawaiian-language account, The True Story of Kaluaikoʻolau as Told by His Wife, Piʻilani. Piʻilani, the daughter of her father and mother, her husband’s wife and the mother of a child, buried her family, hiding in the wrinkles of the creases of the mountain cliffs. What follows is a lyric, “a night name” inspired by this story as interpreted in Merwin’s novel-in-verse. In ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, the phrase “he inoa pō,”according to the Hawaiian Dictionary (Mary Kawena Pukui, Samuel H. Elbert, 1986), refers to a “dream name, as a name for an infant believed received in a dream; it was thought that if such a name were not given, the child would be sickly or die.”

The final line of the song is an excerpt from from Kulāiwi (lesson 15), a Hawaiian-language-learning television program from the 1990s hosted by ʻEkela Kanīʻaupiʻo-Crozier: “Papa, I miss Mama so much on this day.”


[written and performed by David Michael DiGregorio]

folding cliffs

This song is featured in a video, HE INOA PŌ (A NIGHT NAME) [QUICKLY BEFORE, SLOWLY AFTER] in which different and common views of Lēʻahi are woven together with this song, “he inoa pō,” developed as part of a song cycle, READ ALOUD LYRICS, performed by DiGregorio at Barakat Contemporary, Seoul (2022); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2023); and Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson (2025). The song was inspired by a reading by Pualani Kanaka‘ole Kanahele at the Doris Duke Theatre at Honolulu Museum of Art (2019) of the epic poem THE FOLDING CLIFFS (Knopf, 1998) written by her teacher and friend, William Stanley Merwin. 

Various foreign diseases introduced to Hawaiʻi precipitated a population collapse, in which an estimated ninety percent of the Hawaiian people were decimated in under seventy years, roughly from the 1780s through the 1840s. Due to the introduction of leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease, many Hawaiian families were separated overnight due to strict quarantine measures during the nineteenth century.

New York-born poet W.S. Merwin moved to the Hawaiian Islands in 1976, settling on an old pineapple plantation on Maui, where he restored the surrounding rainforest. He died in Maui in 2019 at the age of 91. Merwin based his poem THE FOLDING CLIFFS on a 1906 Hawaiian-language account, THE TRUE STORY OF KALUAIKOʻOLAU AS TOLD BY HIS WIFE, PIʻILANI. Piʻilani, the daughter of her father and mother, her husband’s wife and the mother of a child, buried her family, hiding in the wrinkles of the creases of the mountain cliffs. What follows is a lyric, “a night name” inspired by this story as interpreted in Merwin’s novel-in-verse. In ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, the phrase “he inoa pō,”according to the Hawaiian Dictionary (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1986) by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert, refers to a “dream name, as a name for an infant believed received in a dream; it was thought that if such a name were not given, the child would be sickly or die."

A night voice whispers,
“Why are you so slow?”
“Why are you so fast?”

A night wind whispers,
“Why are you so slow?”
“Why are you so fast?”

A night wind whispers
A night name
A night name 
He inoa pō
A night name

The bees 
Moved so quickly 
“Why are you so slow?”
The bees moved so quickly
“Why are you so slow?”

A night name

from video:
2024.
3ʻ47"
As first presented with the title "quickly before, slowly after" as commissioned for the screening program:

i nā kiʻi ma mua, nā kiʻi ma hope: program 7: drift:
A film presentation and discussion by kekahi wahi (Sancia Miala Shiba Nash and Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick). 
Text by kekahi wahi as prepared for a screening for Hawaiʻi Contemporary Art Summit 2024 during the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture:
Presenting diverse arrangements of moving-image works from an intergenerational group of creatives connected to Hawaiʻi, program 7: drift and program 8: aloha move affectionately across time and place — the lessons of island living providing direction along the way. 

____
1778년 이후 백인들이 하와이로 이주하면서 그들과 같이 옯겨 진 것은 각종 전염병입니다. 
이로 인해 그 후 70 년 만에 하와이 민족의 90 퍼센트가 사라졌습니다.  특히 19세기 말에는 지금은 한센병으로 일컫는 나병에 대한 엄격한 격리 조치로 하와이 제도는 하루 아침에 많은 이산 가족을 낳았습니다.

뉴욕 태생 시인 윌리엄 스탠리 머윈은 1976년 하와이 제도로 이주한 후 1998년 『구비 굽은 절벽』 이라는 시를 썼습니다. 
머윈은 구비구비 난 산 절벽의 주름으로 숨어 하나씩 죽어 간 가족을 모두 묻고 마을로 돌아온 여인, 자기 아버지와 어머니의 딸이자 자기 남편의 부인이자 자기 아이의 엄마인 피이라니의 실화를 서사시로 기록했습니다.

he inoa pō

From an experimental Hörspiel (radio play) commissioned by Bayerischer Rundfunk 2 (BR2).

follow woman wood

This is the soundtrack to Summer Days in Keijo—written in 1937, a film by Sung Hwan Kim in musical collaboration with David Michael DiGregorio (aka dogr). This track features the voice of Mieke Van de Voort.

Jij denkt allen maar dat het romantisch is

While we were staying in the capital

Landmark

The Japanese have greatly changed the appearance of the town

I don't see my face in yours

Business becomes fast and furious as the evening goes on

This is the soundtrack to Summer Days in Keijo—written in 1937, a film by Sung Hwan Kim in musical collaboration with David Michael DiGregorio (aka dogr)

Keijo's most impressive building is the Governor General's Palace

This one was born to-day

This is the soundtrack to Summer Days in Keijo—written in 1937, a film by Sung Hwan Kim in musical collaboration with David Michael DiGregorio (aka dogr). This track features the voice and the thoughts of Mieke Van de Voort.

Ik ben schuldig

Are you there? [Keijo arrangement]

A playblast from the archive. Featuring the real sounds of Cambridge, especially interiors, especially hallways.

fives plus tail

Fives Plus Tail

From LOVE BEFORE BOND by Sung Hwan Kim.
music by David Michael DiGregorio
text by William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXV

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? (379)

Love Before Bond

Sonnet LXV

Farewell AM band at 압구정 구현대아파트 20동

For the LIE ON THE HAN RIVER video by 이주요.

text by 이주요
Jewyo Rhii

What you said is, "It is cold."
Yes, it's getting cold.
What I said is, "We don't have a place to kiss, to sex, or making love.
I can't do this."
What you said is,
"My idea of Heaven is being affectionate. Kissing every part of you
in public
in public.
But no one
notices."
"That's my idea of Heaven."
Can you work?
"I do work."
No , I mean work,
work for money.
You don't produce,
you don't produce anything. "Yes I do,
I think the thoughts in my head."

한강 han river heaven & work (LIE ON THE HAN RIVER version)

Beautiful Han River.

A sketch for the music in the LIE ON THE HAN RIVER video by 이주요.

한강 han river (slow sketch)

You don't have to worry when there is Han River.

From the video LIE ON THE HAN RIVER by 이주요.

한강 han river don't worry (LIE ON THE HAN RIVER version)

did you see a little egg?  

if you see a little egg, that's mine

push it down there

this sea has uncaked the mud

From SEEING YOUR FIRST DEAD BIRD, sold out limited edition. The original set of 50 handmade CDs is gone, but a new hand-mimeographed form is available. Contact for purchase details via Facebook or Twitter.

climbed up, last time (€)

live at De Nieuwe Kraakgeluiden, Amsterdam; Claire Harvey on guitar strum

fix it up (live)

as inspired by the winter, 한영애, and Iosif Ivanovici.

사의 찬미

This is the second track from my first studio album IN KOREAN WILDS AND VILLAGES, released 2009 on Sonig Records, produced by Andi Toma, directed by Sung Hwan Kim.

In Korean Wilds and Villages

man on Earth

This is the third track from my first studio album IN KOREAN WILDS AND VILLAGES, released 2009 on Sonig Records, produced by Andi Toma, directed by Sung Hwan Kim.

Han River heaven and work

David Michael DiGregorio is a composer and musician based in New York and Honolulu. His background includes classical and improvised technique on the piano, diverse vocal methods, performance with a gospel choir, electro-acoustic composition, and experimental pop construction.

His discography features albums IN KOREAN WILDS AND VILLAGES (as dogr, 2009), produced by Andi Toma and published by Sonig Records; and two Bayerischer-Rundfunk-2 broadcast commissions with Sung Hwan Kim, HOWL BOWEL OWL (2013) and ONE FROM IN THE ROOM (2010, for which the two won the Karl-
Sczuka-Förderpreis).  

His major concerts include Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan; New Museum, New York; Barakat Gallery, Ilmin Museum, and Insa Art Space, Seoul; De Nieuwe Kraakgeluiden and STEIM, Amsterdam; IFFR, Rotterdam; Huis aan de Werf and BAK, Utrecht; the Images Festival, Toronto; Project Arts Centre, Dublin; etablissement d’en face, Brussels. Group concerts include MoMA PS1 and Danspace Project, New York.

Group exhibitions include Small at Galerie Ferdinand van Dieten—d’Eendt, Amsterdam, 2006; BRILLIANT COLLABORATORS at Ilmin Museum, Seoul, 2013; New Habits, CASCO, Utrecht, 2014; and THE SHADOW OF THE BODY OF THE COACHMAN, Kunstsaele, Berlin, 2016. His film, COVER, has been exhibited for the 2022 collection show at Nam June Paik Art Center, Korea. His composition was included in Ari Benjamin Meyers’ Kunsthalle for Music Ensemble at Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly Witte de With), Rotterdam, 2018.

DiGregorio has collaborated since 2006 with Sung Hwan Kim, initially through development of the IN THE ROOM series. Later works include HAIR IS A PIECE OF HEAD, exhibited at the Busan Biennale 2022 and the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2022; the Venice-Biennale-commissioned film LOVE BEFORE BOND, 2017; composition and performance in the operatic experiment 피나는 노력으로 한 [A WOMAN WHOSE HEAD CAME OUT BEFORE HER NAME] (2015), commissioned for the Asian-Arts-Theatre, Gwangju; music for the Tate-Modern-commissioned 2012 film TEMPER CLAY, which has also been shown in an extended installation version at Kim’s solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2021. DiGregorio also has collaborated with artists Danai Anesiadou, Rosa Barba, Byungjun Kwon, Martín Lanz Landázuri, Otobong Nkanga, Jewyo Rhii, and Haegue Yang.

http://dogr.org; ig: @dogr_music

David Michael DiGregorio (dogr)

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