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Category Archives: Western classical music
What is aural image is conjured up when you hear of a Civic Chorale? Perhaps a worthy amateur choral society, used to performing madrigals with rather too many singers and too much vibrato, plodding through an annual Messiah at Easter time? Think again when it comes to the Suwon Civic Chorale. This forty-strong choir from the home of one of Korea's world heritage sites - the Hwaseong Fortress - can justifiably call themselves world class.
The sound they produce is totally familiar to those who move in the circles of good Western European choirs. Well-blended, warm-sounding, neither too full of vibrato nor with the acid tone of some of the early music specialists. The sopranos and altos, when singing in unison, ...
Suwon Civic Chorale in Kingston
24-Aug-08
Earlier this week the Suwon Civic Chorale were participating in the convention of the Association of British Choral Directors in Lincoln. Friday night saw a gala concert in the cathedral including other world-class choral groups such as the Orlando Consort.
Tonight the Suwon choir come to All Saints Parish Church in Kingston market place, KT1 1JP. The concert starts at 7:30 and admission is free.
The Suwon Civic Chorale, is a group consisting of professional vocalists who have majored in vocal music and is one of the top professional choruses in Korea, striving to create world-class choral music. Founded in 1983, the Chorale has staged 115 regular performances and over 800 tour and invitational concerts and made TV and radio appearances which ...
Americans in Pyongyang
28-Feb-08
With typically bad timing my travel arrangements didn't work out. I caught the Star-Spangled Banner and the first movement of the New World Symphony in the car on the way to the airport, but missed the North Korean anthem which opened the broadcast, and of course all the encores -- including the tearful Arirang (by that time I was in the departure lounge and out of reach of WQXR national public radio 96.3 FM.)
On Monday, the New York Philharmonic's trip to the DPRK was on the front page of the Arts section of the New York Times. On Tuesday, the day of the NYPO concert itself, the trip was on the front page of the main section, reporting on the ...
Tuesday, 26 February 19:00
Location: Lecture Recital Room, Guildhall School
Hyun-Ae Lee violin
Bojana Dimkovic piano
Schubert Sonata for violin and piano in A
Saint-Seans/Ysaye Caprice
Martinu Sonata for Violin and Piano no.1
Admission Free
Links:
Da Capo String Quartet blog
Hyun-ae Lee biography
Guildhall School events page
Ji-yeoun You recital at LSE
09-Feb-08
Ji-Yeoun You (piano)
Date: Thursday 14 February 2008
Time: 1.05-2pm
Venue: Shaw Library, Old Building
Beethoven:
- Phantasie Op77
- Piano Sonata Op27 No 2 "Moonlight"
- Piano Sonata Op57 "Appassionata"
Winner of five major competition prizes, Ji Yeoun has the privilege of studying accompaniment with one of the 20th century's great singers, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For further information email events AT lse DOT ac DOT uk or call 020 7955 6043.
If you are planning to attend this event and would like details on how to get here and what time to arrive, please refer to Coming to an event at LSE
Links
LSE events page
Ji-yeoun You entry in Wikipedia
Ji-yeoun ...
Weekend events update
07-Dec-07
Since I did my 1 December events post, I've received a couple of updates which are now reflected in that post.
First, I've received confirmation of the exhibition / puppet show on Saturday by Magenta Tan (née 신진경) at the Korean Register Office in New Malden this Saturday and Sunday (8/9 Dec). The show is entitled "Woven Inspiration" (flyer left).
Second, on Sunday afternoon (9 December) 17-year-old double bass virtuoso Ha Young Jung ((Q: What does this Korean teenage virtuoso have in common with the middle-aged LKL blogmeister? A: We were both music scholars at the same school in Bristol. OK, I was only an exhibitioner, but maybe, Shin Jeong-ah style, I might be permitted a bit of qualification-inflation)) will be participating ...
Musical diplomacy
04-Nov-07
A while ago I posted about Jason Carter's trip to Pyongyang to participate in the annual Friendship Festival. While in Pyongyang, Carter met up with Middlesborough opera diva Suzannah Clarke, who has been performing at the Friendship Festival every year since 2003.
Clarke's North Korean connection is through football. She's had a long association with the beautiful game, warming up the crowds at Wembley at the opening celebrations for Euro 96. She also sang at the England - Albania world cup qualifier recently, singing the Albanian national anthem in the language it for which it was written.
In 2001, while filming The Game of their Lives, Nick Bonner and Dan Gordon brought the surviving members of the 1966 North Korean soccer team ...
Leeds prizewinner to play in London
25-Oct-07
Sunwook Kim, winner of the 2006 Leeds International Piano competition, comes to London in November for two concerts. For me, the highlight will be the solo recital on 4 November in Golders Green for the Mill Hill Music Club:
1. Mill Hill Music Club
- Date : 4th November 2007, 7:30 pm
- Venue : The Hall, The Henrietta Barnett School, Central Square, Hamstead Garden Suburb, London, NW11 7BN
- Ticket Prices : 15 pounds
- Programme
Beethoven - Sonata No. 9 in E Major, Op. 14-1
Mozart - Sonata No. 14 c minor K. 457
Chopin - Fantasie in f minor Op. 49
Liszt - Sonata in b minor S. 178
- Mill Hill Box Office : 0208 959 3866
2. Royal Festival Hall
- London Philharmonic Orchestra
- Date : 9th ...
DPRK travellers’ tales
15-Sep-07
Two travel accounts have recently been highlighted in the BAKS list. First, a long account by guitarist Jason Carter of his 10-day trip to Pyongyang earlier this year to perform in a spring music festival. Like many DPRK travel accounts, we find the author having moments of frustration with the minders as well as appreciating contact with the people he meets.
Carter shared the festival with hundreds of other performers, and turned up not knowing what he was expected to play. He gave them one of his own compositions, though the minders wanted something a bit jollier.
For those who have been hanging around the various DPRK themed events in London this year, there will be a familiar name - Suzannah Clarke, ...
Sejong: what live music is all about
16-Jun-07
Sejong: Three Moments in Time - Cadogan Hall, Sunday 10 June
Go along to a standard orchestral concert, and what do you see? Ranks of musicians sitting inertly and gazing intently at their music stands. The conductor's baton is maybe a flash of white just visible in the corner of their eye, but from the audience's perspective the orchestra is stolidly half a beat behind the conductor, and whatever the maestro does, the musicians play the symphony precisely the same way they've always played it.
Going to see Sejong, there's a refreshing difference. First, there's no conductor. Second, apart from the cellists, all the players are standing, even the bassist. Immediately, there's a sense of energy on the stage even before the ...
Lim Hyung-joo at SJSS
11-Jun-07
In the first half of the St John's recital on Thursday, Lim Hyung-joo concentrated on the more classical end of the popera spectrum. There was a microphone on stage, and Lim stood behind it, but up until the interval the evening was un-miked. Having heard a couple of his performances on YouTube I was wondering whether he had the voice for opera, but for the first half of the programme he cranked up his vocal volume and his voice was much more operatic than his YouTube videos led me to expect.
Dressed in a mid-grey tail-coat with contrasting reveres on the collar, one's ears were expecting a showy performance to fit in with what the eyes were seeing. Looking at the ...
Korean popera star comes to London
01-Jun-07
Thanks to the watchful eyes of Kay, I discovered just in time for yesterday's "what's on" post that the Korean Residents Society have invited the youthful popera star Lim Hyung-joo to appear at St John's Smith Square next week.
The programme includes some classical lollipops plus one or two of the songs which have made him famous, including The Salley Gardens, title of one of his albums. Some Korean songs round out the programme.
Links:
Buy tickets at St John's Smith Square
Lim Hyung Joo signs $1m album contract with EMI Classics, KOCCA, 28 Nov 2006
Popera Star Lim Sings Colors of Korea in New Album 'Lotus' - Korea Times, 11 October 2005
You can get a flavour of Lim's style at YouTube below:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkTScAjJJKc[/youtube]
Nice-sounding voice, light ...
Korean Seasons to launch the summer
30-May-07
The London concert-going public groans inwardly when it sees yet another advertisement for a candle-lit Vivaldi Four Seasons performed by a scratch orchestra at some central London church or other. Such a programme must put bums on seats or else promoters wouldn't constantly recycle it. But we yearn for something a bit more innovative.
Well, here is that something. And it's a seriously imaginative programme. Tchaikovsky is the familiar name which will pull in the punters, Piazzolla the fun composer who, if you have not heard any already, will hopefully be a delight, and the Sukhi Kang work (from 2006) which will likely challenge the listener in new directions. And the band is a crack group of international string soloists collectively ...
If you're prepared to turn up on the off-chance of there being returns, Myung-whun Chung is conducting the LSO tonight at the Barbican in what is becoming quite a popular coupling: Mozart and Bruckner. Piotr Anderszewski plays everybody's favourite Mozart Piano Concerto -- No 23, K488, while the meatier part of the programme is made up by Bruckner's most accessible symphony -- No 7.
Sorry for the late notice: I've only just found out myself.
Links:
Barbican website.
The triennial Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition was held in April in Bamberg, Germany. 2004's winner, Gustavo Dudamel, was recently appointed misc director of the LA Philharmonic, marking out the competition as an event which identifies the future stars.
The 2007 competition featured 12 competitors from Germany, Egypt, Russia, USA, Britain. And Busan-born Sung Shi-yeon flew the flag for South Korea. The hopefuls had to rehearse and perform Mahler and Schubert, as well as recent commissions from Mark-Anthony Turnage, Bruno Mantovani and Benedict Mason.
Similar to the recent Maria Callas awards, however, no first prize was awarded. Sung Shi-yeon received second prize, worth 10,000 Euros. The next stage in her career is already set, as she joins James Levine at the Boston ...
The Classical Hallyu
11-Apr-07
Rain, BoA and their like are not the only singers to be known outside of Korea. In the classical music world, Jo Sumi has long been an international megastar. But there is an up-and-coming collection of Korean singers making their way in the highly competitive world of classical music.
At the recent Maria Callas opera awards in Athens, Koreans were the only male prize-winners. The top prize was not awarded, but second and third, plus two honorable mentions, all went to Koreans. (The female award went to an Irish woman).
From left: Moon Jung-hyun, Yang Tae-joong, Lee Eung-kwang and Heo Jong-hoon. [YONHAP]
The second and third placed Koreans are both, interestingly, based in Germany. I have a spy who sings in the Lubeck ...
An offer he could refuse
27-Jan-07
The Japan Times discloses Kim Jong-il's love of Western classical music, and of one interpreter thereof in particular.
Seiji Ozawa, formerly chief conductor of the prestigious Boston Symphony Orchestra, and now at the Vienna State Opera, received an approach from the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun), at Kim's request, to become conductor of the Pyongyang National Symphony Orchestra. Ozawa was able to decline, being contracted to the Vienna opera until 2009.
"I thought a lot and I don't think I can focus on music in the political environment in North Korea" Ozawa is quoted as saying.
Kings College Choir in Seoul
21-Dec-06
I'd be interested to hear if any Seoulites who happen to visit this site went to hear the King's College Choir at the Seoul Arts Centre on Saturday. Not cheap, at up to 120,000 won per ticket.
Part of the magic of King's is the acoustic of the chapel itself and the very English sound of the organ, and I'm not sure how a cathedral-style choir might sound in a drier concert hall acoustic. The organ problem was solved, reading between the lines of the SeoulSelection and KBS notices of the concert, by performing unaccompanied works or those requiring piano or harp accompaniment (the major work performed was Britten's Ceremony of Carols)
I'm assuming the choir will soon be heading home (if ...
While Western classical music is outside my self-imposed remit, I thought I'd pass on news of an upcoming recital at the Cadogan Hall (5 Sloane Terrace, London, SW1X 9DQ) on 14 December featuring soprano mega-star Jo Sumi with violinist Kang Dong-suk and two pianists, Pascal Devoyon and Vincenzo Scalera. Details on the Cadogan Hall website. An interesting and varied programme.
Thanks to Aidan Foster-Carter for the following:
It was a notable night for Korea at the finals of the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition 2006.
Held triennially, this is one of the world's leading prizes. Past winners include Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia, Dmitri Alexeev, and Artur Pizarro.
To those illustrious names, add Sunwook Kim (above): at 18 the youngest ever winner. You can hear his winning rendition of Brahms' first piano concerto in D minor online for the next few days on the BBC's site here. (Kim's performance is 90 minutes into the programme - Ed)
Nor is this all. Another Korean, Sung-Hoon Kim, placed fifth with Mozart's C minor concerto (K491).
Past Leeds finalists include Myung-whun Chung: joint fourth in 1975, when Mitsuko Uchida came ...
I just happened to spot this browsing Time Out yesterday.
A drive-time concert of Mozart, Bizet and Piazzola at St Margaret's Westminster today. I'm not sure what mix of instruments they are (presumably they include an accordionist given the Piazzola?). Go along and find out, at 6pm. Tickets £7 (concessions £5) from 020 7121 6604 and info from 020 7654 4841.
Link to St Margaret's website (click on "Rush Hour Classics" for confirmation of the concert)
Lim Hyung-joo, popera sensation
11-Oct-05
An article from the Korea Times which I'm posting in full as it seems to have disappeared off their website.
Popera Star Lim Sings Colors of Korea in New Album 'Lotus'
by Han Eun-jung
Korea Times, 11 October 2005
Little was known of the boy who walked on stage to deliver the national anthem at President Roh Moo-hyun's inauguration ceremony two and a half years ago. But by the time he stepped down, the country knew that a star had been born.
Since then, Lim Hyung-joo, 20, has completed his studies at Julliard and gone on to the Academia San Felice in Florence, Italy. In the meantime, his career has taken off, with the release of three studio albums and one concert album. His most ...
