Dr. Fofo Tai- Jung Jackson

Dr. Fofo Tai- Jung Jackson has performed as a solo and chamber percussionist in several cities around the world with various musical groups around the world including Shanghai, Hangzhou, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New York City, Kansas City, Lawrence, KS, Princeton, Appleton, WI, and Cortona, Italy. Post-Crescent news in Appleton, WI described Dr. Jackson’s technique as, “sheer perfection.”

As a soloist, Dr. Jackson premiered Beneath a Canvas of Green by Aaron Perrine in 2018 with University of Kansas Wind Ensemble and also played Catch Me If You Can as the solo vibraphonist with the KU University Band in 2016. Dr. Jackson has been invited and performed at the Hong Kong Arts Centre with the City Modern Dance Company. She has also performed Eckhard Kopetzki’s Night of Moon Dances, accompanied by the University of Kansas Percussion Group, at KU and other local venues. In 2016, Her percussion duet, FOJO, performed Gone, Dog. Gone! by Mark Applebaum for TEDx Wyandotte at the Kansas City Kansas Community College Performing Arts Center, and gave a short lecture about percussive arts through sound and motion.

Dr. Jackson strives to expand her artistic boundaries by exploring different genres of music. She has gone beyond the conventions of classical orchestral percussion into the realm of new music, and Chinese music, having performed with Helianthus, KU’s resident new music ensemble, and attended new music institutes such as the So Percussion Summer Institute and the Cortona Sessions, Italy for New Music. She performed with Kansas City Chinese Music Ensemble at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Johnson County Community College for Chinese New Year Celebration in 2016-2019. 

Dr. Jackson began playing percussion at the age of twelve and piano at six. She received her MM with honors from New York University; DMA at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. She has studied under Dr. Michael Compitello, Ji-Hye Jung, Jonathan Haas, Simon Boyer, James Saporito, and Josh Quillen.  Dr. Jackson received her Bachelor's in Music by studying Chinese Music from Tainai National University of the Arts in Taiwan, studying under Shih Tehwa. She is currently a faculty member in Culture House, offering piano, percussion lessons and percussion ensembles by freelancing in the Kansas City area and performing piano during Sunday services at the First United Methodist Church of Oskaloosa. Dr. Jackson also teaches percussion ensembles at Blue Valley Northwest High school.