Kim Solbong Premieres in Spring Fest

The Seoul Spring Festival of Chamber Music (SSF) opened Thursday at Sejong Chamber Hall, downtown Seoul, its fourth edition with a concert celebrating both continuing traditions and modern innovation.

While popular artists, including pianist Kim Sun-wook and the Jupiter String Quartet from the United States, offered tasteful renditions of Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert, rising South Korean composer Kim Solbong presented something new in his latest chamber piece ``Sundial Chronicles.’’

The festival’s 2009 composer-in-residence offered what he calls ``a rite of spring chronicling the change in time’’ through an eclectic dialogue among Western classical instruments and a couple ``gugak’’ (a traditional Korean music) organs, ``janggu’’ (drum) and ``gayageum’’ (12-string zither).

From left, gayageum and janggu. Photo by moi! During rehearsal

Of course, such a meeting point of East and West isn’t new. One can easily recall Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble which brings together violin, Brazillian shakers and Chinese ``pipa’’ (lute) to create sounds such gadgets weren’t meant to make, or Ahn Eack-tai’s Samulnori Concerto, which features the harmony of Korean traditional percussion art and the Western orchestra.

What is significant in the premiere is the effort of the young composer, who is not yet 28, to deconstruct the concept of chamber music, and the result is spontaneous combustion by what many exclaimed that evening as ``a dream team.’’

Kim himself tackled the piano -- including string plucking with a spoon that John Cage fans would appreciate -- opposite the janggu beats of maestro Kim Duk-soo. The founding father of samulnori brought exhilarating rhythms in solos, but stealthily controlled the volume for other parts in the spirit of true chamber music making.

Photo by moi! During rehearsal. I love it when Mr. Yang exclaimed "eolssu! (얼쑤)!"

They were joined by violinist-SSF artistic director Kang Dong-suk, cellist Yang Sung-won, clarinetist Jerry Jae-il Chae and gayageum artist Kim Ji-hyun. It was something that continues the spirit of shaking up conventions: the Western strings retained their essence but also strived for something more, with some wild lilting and vibrato, that could well have been played by a ``haegeum’’ (Korean fiddle) -- akin to how Isang Yun has the cello croon like ``geomungo’’ (Korean zither) in his Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra.

It would be rash, however, to assume that Yun or the other aforementioned artists influenced Kim. This reporter only mentioned these men’s works in an attempt to illustrate the unique nature of the performance. If a parallel were to be drawn, Chin Unsuk comes to mind -- Kim, like the prolific elder composer, defies categorization and speaks a musical language that is modern yet non-doctrinal.

Born in Korea in 1981, Kim studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in the U.S. He entered the public radar by winning the grand prize of media giant Bertelsmann Group’s 2000 World of Expression Awards and has since premiered diverse works. But ``Sundial Chronicles’’ posed a completely new experimentation, both technical and aesthetic.

``I was in such a zone of discomfort it felt like my first time composing,’’ the musician said about his first time working with Korean instruments, which are percussive and less practical than their Western counterparts.

``It’s a starter,’’ Kim Duk-soo said about the piece. ``Solbong is really talented, and we need more young artists to experiment like he does. I’m looking forward to what he can do next.’’

Indeed, the beauty of ``Sundial Chronicles’’ lies in its innovative power that will, this reporter hopes, propel the creation of something new and named and transcending self and heritage, a struggle every artist faces.

Does this multimedia world, where channels are more open than ever, challenge the creative process? ``It’s only a technical problem. Mediums, expressions will always change, but intentions and ideas of music always come first,’’ he said, citing Rachmaninov as an example of someone was not particularly a pioneer in hs time but whose works have enduring strength. ``As long as you are truthful, art will prevail,’’ he said.

Kim will serve as artistic director of Dumbo Space, a new hall under construction in his current home, New York City, as well as that of the 2009 Atlantic Music Festival, which opens June 22-July 21 in Maine.

Isang Yun’s Discordant Harmony Fills Tongyeong

They say a true artist transcends one's personal struggles and creates something new: ``A composer cannot view the world in which he lives with indifference. Human suffering, oppression, injustice... all that comes to me in my thoughts. Where there is pain, where there is injustice, I want to have a say in it through my music,'' the late composer Isang Yun (1917-1995) was quoted as saying in 1983.

Born in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), Yun was recognized in his youth for partaking in the resistance movement against colonial rule. After studying music in Korea and Japan, he made his way to Europe in the 1950s.

In Berlin, Yun became part of the international avant-garde and gained international prominence with his orchestral piece ``Reak'' at the 1966 Donaueschingen Festival.

The composer's life, however, took an unexpected turn in 1967 when he became implicated in a political scandal called the East Berlin spy incident. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released two years later following international protests by Herbert von Karajan and other esteemed musicians. Exiled from his home country, he became a German citizen.

Tongyeong: Bridging East, West

Yun's works are deeply rooted in the European tradition, but they also embody the vibrant tone of Korean traditional music. ``His composing manner blends Eastern and Western elements into a unique personal style, into the art of gliding transition in the spirit of Tao,'' said the Isang Yun Peace Foundation.

In the small port city of Tongyeong, hometown of the late composer, camellias take full bloom and the warm spring breeze lingers by. The 9th Tongyeong International Music Festival (TIMF) will be held from March 27 to April 2, with 17 main performances commemorating Yun and his defiant originality.

This year's theme, ``East and West,'' was inspired by his 1994 piece, ``Ost-West-Miniaturen'' (East-West Duet) for oboe and cello. Indeed, the Korean-German musician's scenic hometown will tide over with his surging, discordant harmonies as premier musicians gather from the both sides of Earth's hemisphere.

Last year, hot artists like Hilary Hahn visited. This year, *maestrolicious* conductor Alexander Liebreich, TIMF's artistic director-to be, will be there... and so will I :)

``TIMF will become an important gateway for artists of the East and West,'' TIMF's future artistic director Alexander Liebreich was quoted as saying in an interview with Yonhap News. The dashing 41-year-old conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra will lead TIMF for three years beginning 2011. ``As a German, it is a great honor and new adventure to assume the artistic directorship of TIMF,'' he said.

Read more about the festival here. You can also visit the festival's Web site, http://www.timf.org/.