About Gordon

Professional Bio (updated Dec. 2023)

Gordon is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Chicago, USA currently living in Busan, South Korea. He composes, arranges and orchestrates music in a wide range of styles including electronic, orchestral, ambient, jazz, modern dance, and experimental avant-garde in contexts such as film, multimedia, modern dance and the concert stage. He performs with a gypsy-swing ensemble known as The Three Players (삼인용) as trumpeter and has performed in rock, jazz, avant-garde, experimental improvisation, classical and music theatre productions. He holds a Bachelor of Music (Illinois Wesleyan University, USA) and a Master of Music Composition (Northwestern University, USA). He also teaches courses on creativity and music production at Dong-seo University in Busan. His current creative interests include generative, interactive music and sound-reactive animation.

origin story

I'm from a small farm town on the edge of Chicago's gravitational pull. And pull it did. After a music performance/composition liberal arts education I found myself in the city proper, struggling to reconcile internal and external expectations about how my life should go. So I allowed that inertia to sweep me further out.

Initially intending my stay in Korea to be only a year or two, I found the flow of life here to be just the right speed and temperature, and heading in directions beyond even my 20-something fantasies. So I stayed, rarely encountering resistance to my desired lifestyle, even as it has matured. I found my ideal friend and co-conspirator in Mi-sun Lee. One thing has led to the next in ways that I wouldn't completely attribute to luck, but I certainly have been lucky.

I've had the time, energy and available resources to compose and perform music that I want to make and like, even finding time to explore a variety of extramusical projects. I've developed as a musician and as a human being. I meet people regularly from all over this amazing planet, of different worldviews and starting points, some passing through, others sticking around. I'm living the life I want and doing new things all the time. I can't say there haven't been difficult times, but Mi-sun and I are growing and learning new ways to navigate life as it unfolds.

Currently (2024) I'm trying to develop as a collaborator with some of the most fascinating artists in my community. It's a challenge to relinquish some control over projects, but I know I have much to learn from these incredible people.

* according to the MBTI personality assessment

home studio 2023

Who am I?


Favorite quotes

"Faire bien avec rien, faire mieux avec peu, mais le faire maintenant!"

Do well with nothing, do better with little, but do it now! 


"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn." - R. W. Emerson 


"The universe is change; and life itself is but what you deem it." - Marcus Aurelius 


"Stop being a lazy piece of sh*t!" - Anne Katharin Dern 


"Live immediately." - Seneca

Rough timeline

with Mi-sun Lee

Madison, WI, USA - July 2023