Ron Korb

Flutist and composer Ron Korb, whose background reflects both Japanese and Canadian roots, has released multiple solo albums while also supplying flute work to film scores and sessions for fellow musicians. His fascination with wind instruments began in childhood through the recorder, expanded during his teenage years with the flute, and deepened further when he performed in an Irish fife and drum band throughout high school, where jazz simultaneously captured his admiration. After completing his studies with honors at the University of Toronto, Korb encountered a Chinese bamboo flute that soon became his principal instrument. He made his recording debut in 1990 with Tear of the Sun, a collaboration with tabla player Donald Quan that prompted his relocation to Japan in the early 1990s for intensive study of traditional flutes; there he completed his second album, Japanese Mysteries, in 1993. While employed as a songwriter by Tokyo’s JCM publishing company, Korb wrote a track for vocalist Alan Tam that achieved major success and earned the Best Original Composition award from Radio and Television Hong Kong. His third release, 1994’s Flute Traveller, showcased fifteen distinct flutes sourced globally. For the follow-up, Behind the Mask in 1995, Korb composed an accompanying short story centered on Indonesian shadow puppet theater and incorporated an array of styles spanning Spanish, Indonesian, Chinese, calypso, and Celtic traditions. He later supplied scores for Mitra Sen’s film Just a Little Red Dot as well as the television series Legacy and Emily of New Moon, and he continued issuing albums such as Taming the Dragon, Titanic: Odyssey, and Persian Arabesque, the last of which appeared under the name of the trio he assembled with bassist Donald Quan and pianist Stephen Bacchus. Across his career Korb has also appeared as a guest musician on projects by Pat Clemence, Mychael Danna, Bruce Mitchell, and Bacchus.