This month there’s music available to suit most tastes, with classical, jazz and K-pop/hip-hop, plus family activities to mark the Lunar New Year (the Seollal public holiday in Korea this year is 16-18 Feb, coinciding with the start of Lent).
Live music and Performance
- Jazz musicians Yunmi Kang and Sangyeon Park join with the Bristol-based BEJE Trio for a tour taking in Cardiff, London, Bristol, Bath and Lyme Regis
- Pianist Sejin Yoon gives a lunchtime recital in St Georges Hanover Square on 11 Feb
- There’s a Community preview and Q&A of Minjeong Kim’s play The Comfort Woman in Wimbledon, 20-21 Feb, prior to its run in Clapham in early March.
- Seongjin Cho plays Chopin at the Barbican, 12 and 15 February
- Kpop and hip-hop concerts this month include
- KINO, 7 Feb (The Garage)
- XLOV, 8 Feb (The Troxy), 11 Feb (Wolverhampton) and 12 Feb (Manchester)
- Lee Minkyuk aka HUTA, 28 Feb (Dingwalls)
Family
- The British Museum hosts some sessions featuring traditional Korean games on 7 Feb
- Yun Project hosts a family day to celebrate Seollal in Bermondsey, 14 Feb
Talks and seminars
- SOAS hosts its second public seminar of the semester with Relational Pasts: The Conflictual International Politics of Memory and the Japan-South Korea History Problem on 6 Feb
- The KCCUK hosts an artist talk linked to their New Gen: The Emerging Voices exhibition on 19 Feb
- Andrei Lankov talks on North Korea: the need for imperfect compromise at SOAS on 20 Feb
Exhibitions
- Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader’s 1880 THAT continues at the Wellcome Collection until April
- The KCCUK’s winter exhibition NEW GEN – The Emerging Voices continues until 27 February
Everything else
- There’s a K-pop / hiphop night in Fire Vauxhall on 6 Feb
- Hanguk Hapa hosts a Coffee Day Party in Wimbledon on 14 Feb
- There’s a new-year-themed supper club in Notting Hill on 15 Feb
- There’s a K-pop cabaret showdown in Soho on 17 Feb
Books expected
- Simple Heart, by Cho Hae-jin tr Jamie Chang pub Other Press
- Holy Boy, by Lee Heejoo tr Lee Joheun pub Picador
- With the Heart of a Ghost: Stories, by Lim Sunwoo tr Kim Chi-young pub Unnamed Press (available in Feb as ebook; hard copy available in March)
- K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today, by Areum Jeong pub University of Michigan Press
- Migration and Cross-Border Marriage in South Korea: Brokering Nationhood and Wifehood, by Minjae Shin pub Routledge
- North Korea: A History (revised ed), by Michael J Seth pub Bloomsbury