Born and raised in Busan, South Korea, JUNA (Junhyung An) relocated to the Netherlands after he got accepted to study jazz guitar at Codarts, the Rotterdam Conservatory. In 2007, He moved to Rotterdam and began his study. JUNA has been hailed by the faculty members of the Jazz guitar department at his study time as “Korean guitar guru, young virtuoso”, and is “a great technician with real musicianship”, according to Hein van de Geyn ￚ a jazz bass virtuoso who was the chairman of jazz department at Codarts, that time.

As he was coming up to all the teacher’s expectations already, JUNA won a prize from DGA (Dutch guitar award) in 2009, at the age of 21.

After his master graduation with the highest mark in his time 2014, JUNA was immediately accepted as a doctoral artistic researcher of the docARTes program at Orpheus institute (Gent, Belgium) and the “academy of creative and performing arts” department of Leiden University. With an honor, he was the first guitarist-candidate to the program from the jazz field. Since 2014, he has been carrying on his research on creating a translation of the Korean traditional instruments’ phrase articulation technique and an embodiment in the contemporary guitar playing method.

After his debut album, “Dreams and Phantasms” was created in 2014 with his quintet, JUNA has been presenting his performing artistry through the stages in Europe and Asia. As his guitar mastery offers versatility, he has been invited to perform not only jazz repertoire but also in other setup of ensembles from pop and electronic music genres.

From 2019, JUNA created his solo guitar-ambient music project in which he presents his distinctive tapping technique in combination with improvisation skill among other extended techniques. Simultaneously, he is leading and participating to some of newly formed jazz projects with many prestigious musicians such as Bert van den Brink.

As music is seldom played alone, I also contribute in other bands to learn, enjoy and make music with other artists. Please see the website www.managementjazz.com to see what I have been upto.