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Gong Myoung: Walkabout at the South bank

The second of the music performances in the All Eyes on Korea festival is Gong Myoung – at heart a percussion band, but the genres range much more broadly than that:

Gong Myoung: Walkabout

Date: 28 July 2012, 7:45pm
Venue: Purcell Room

Gong Myoung at Beck's Bar @ Meat Market at the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2007

GongMyoung, meaning ‘resonance’, is a quartet that presents traditional Korean music with a contemporary twist. Playing a range of instruments, it is not uncommon to hear the sounds of up to 30 instruments during a single performance. With the beat of the drums, percussion and the dominating melody of Korean bamboo flutes the 11 pieces in the repertoire beautifully depict the mood and feeling of a boy’s journey to an unknown destination.

Each a Korean music graduate, the four members of Gong Myoung were not satisfied with the Korean music of the past, although respectful of their traditions they are not bound by them. For them, this free-spirit is the foundation of their music and presented here with the concert, Walkabout. Although traditional Korean music serves as the backbone to Gong Myoung’s sounds, it is the fusing of innovative modern sounds in between that creates this fascinating palette of music. The members are also the very creators of their own bamboo instrument named after the group Gong Myoung. Genre boundaries are non-existent in Gong Myoung as they continue to branch out into the worlds of plays, musicals, dance as well as cinema.

Programme:

  1. Paper Lady
  2. War and Peace
  3. Treasure Island
  4. Walkabout
  5. Camelopardalis
  6. Story of Salmon
  7. Play with us
  8. Sunflower
  9. Seoljanggu
  10. GongMyoungYooHee
  11. Joy

Performers:

  • Song Kyong-keun (sogeum | daegeum | janggu | electronic janggu | Korean drums | dijeridoo | jabara | kalimba | nagak | sakuhachi | shakers | alto recorder | GongMyoung)
  • Lim Yong-ju (Korean drums | janggu | electronic janggu | gong | crasher | cymbals | timbales | djembe | cajon | wind bells | shakers | China gong | jing | waterphone | GongMyoung)
  • Park Seung-won (vocals | Korean drums | taepyeongso | gong | janggu | Electronic janggu | wood bells | harmonica | energy bells | xylophone | shakers | pin | kalimba | GongMyoung)
  • Kang Sun-il (vocals | taepyeongso | Korean drums | piri | pin | janggu | electronic janggu | jing | guitar | dijeridoo | cymbals | soprano recorder | GongMyoung)

Blending melody and rhythms with the power of Korean drums and the delicacy of its percussion, GongMyoung has also worked with television, drama and interactive media artists. As well as writing their own music the musicians have also created their own instruments specific to their unique sound.

Image credit: Melbourne Festival on MySpace

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