Han Terra is a Korean-born inventor, composer and musician. She was a child prodigy and was performing by age 6 as a Korean kayageum player beginning her training at the age of 4. She has invented a 24 stringed musical instrument called TeRra incorporating artificial intelligence.
Han is the first and the youngest individual kayageum musician of Blanchette Rockefeller Fund and who had a debut in the Carnegie Hall in New York. She was admitted a voting member of the Grammy Awards of The Recording Academy as few East Asian traditional musicians. Han is honored to be appointed as fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in a feat accomplished by few East Asian traditional musicians in the United Kingdom.
She is known for a polymath in the areas of music, instruments, arts, dance, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, history, literature, writing, journals, fashion, design, technology, science and aesthetics. She is the only one figure who mastered the Eastern traditional arts singing and dancing accompanied with the Western classical music in Korea, Japan, China, India, France, and has been performing globally since.
Name and genealogy
Han was born in Seoul, South Korea. Her birth name was Laesuk ("Advent of Goodness" or "Goddess"). She got the Buddhist name 'Myeong-wol' (명월, 明月), which means 'bright moon', from a Buddhist priest in her teens. Han also uses the pseudonym Dan-young (단영, 澶濴). She adopted the name 'TeRra' based on the name of the earth goddess Terra in the 2000s.
Han is a member of the Cheongju Han clan family. The clan is well known for a long tradition of the women members of royal consorts produced the largest numbers of 16 queens in Korean history. Her maternal grandmother's family was in the fashion and textile business and moved from Japan to Korea in the late 1920s.
Early life
Her initial ambition was to become a pianist, having begun to take piano lessons at the age of 4, and won the National Students Musical Competition. She began to study Korean classical music at age 6, she won the National Music Competition of Korea at the age 8. She trained in the Korean heritable dance traditions such as National intangible heritage No. 46. Salpuri, court dance Chunaeng-jeon and Buchae-chum, Ipchum under Eunhee Song age 6. She also took violin, classical guitar, and flute lessons. She started composition since age 8.
Han considered a career in journalism or as a medical doctor. She was also cast for the main role of an independent film which was featured in a film festival of Seoul National University in 2002.
South Korean journalist Byung-Wook Jang interviewed Han and published the interviews in the book Gifted, TeRra in 2015.
Education
Han trained East Asian traditional performing arts at the prestigious institutes. She studied Korean traditional performing arts forms at National Gugak Middle and High School which is one of Korean government subsidiaries of National Gugak Center. She obtained a Ph.D. degree as well as B.A and M.A degrees in music from Seoul National University under Kim Il Ryun, Chae-suk Lee, and Jeongja Kim.
She researched traditional East Asian performing arts at Tokyo University of the Arts, Central Conservatory of Music, and Yanbian University. Especially, Han was trained in other East Asian zither traditions, including the Japanese Koto, Shamisen, the Chinese Guzheng, and the Indian Sitar. Through her research stints in Japan and China, Han acquired a deeper understanding of the Pan-Asian musical heritage. She took lessons in Japanese Koto of Ikuta school under the professor Ando Masateru at Tokyo University of the Arts and Chinese Guzheng, North Korea and Yanbian province Kayageum under Xingsan Jin, China National Intangible Cultural Heritage No.1083 at the Yanbian University and studied their traditional other performing art forms such as Japanese traditional dance and singing. In addition, she studied Indian Sitar with Daisy Paradis in New York.
In the United States, she studied data science at Harvard University's HavardX and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Han speaks Korean, Japanese, Chinese, English, French, and Italian.