The combination of Korean traditional instruments with modern western ones gives rise to complex performance issues. Incompatibilities of style, volume, timbre and tuning are challenges to be overcome, not always with success. With the improvisatory nature of jazz, where instruments get their chance for solos and where amplification is a customary feature of the mix, … [Read More]
Category: Live music reviews (page 6)
BIGBANG at Wembley Arena: Fantastic, Baby
The thudding of the bass speakers was turning my inside to soup as the shrieks of the fangirls were searing laser-like into my brain. And the concert hadn’t even started yet. I had brought a stiffening drink into the arena with me, but there was no chance to down it. As soon as the band … [Read More]
CNBLUE at the indigO2 – Saharial reports from last Saturday’s gig
It was 3pm on a sunny but cool afternoon when I began to queue for the CNBLUE concert, though many had been there since early morning coming from as far afield as Finland, France, Switzerland, Italy and Poland – a wide mix of nationalities and ethnicity that seemed almost equal. As with all concerts there … [Read More]
All Eyes on Korea: consistent investment in the performing arts brings its rewards
The London 2012 Olympics was around a decade in the making: preparation of the bid, building the venue itself and putting in place the infrastructure required to run a successful games. And for the last couple of years of that preparation time, a separate team of hard-working organisers from the Korean Ministry of Culture Sports … [Read More]
Battle of the Divas: Shining K-Classics at the Festival Hall
Maestro Seigerstam eased himself onto the platform looking like a cross between Brahms and a benign troll, long white beard resting on a generous stomach, long white hair reaching down the back of his tailcoat. With a waggle of his baton, the woodwind started playing Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet Overture and the Shining K-Classics concert … [Read More]
Concert notes: Be-Being’s Korean Masque Music Project at the QEH
Be-Being (비빙) was the first of the five musical events of the All Eyes on Korea festival on the South Bank and set the scene well for the remainder. It was an evening of fusion: contemporary music on traditional instruments, with some of the numbers accompanied by traditional mask dances from a variety of traditions. … [Read More]
Concert notes: HJ Lim at the Wigmore
She strode onto the stage in her trademark silk trouser suit, casually tossed a handkerchief into the piano and launched immediately into the intensity of the first of Rachmaninov’s Etudes Tableaux Op 33. HJ Lim’s debut at the Wigmore had departed. As when a bus driver puts his foot on the accelerator before his passengers … [Read More]
Concert Notes: All Eyes on Baramgot at the Purcell Room
I had expected the five-piece ensemble Baramgot (바람곶) to provide a solid evening of traditionally folk-inspired Korean music. Having attended a number of traditional Korean music performances before, I had a fairly clear idea of what I was in for, and I was looking forward to it. The 75 minute programme consisted of seven items, … [Read More]
HJ Lim: the latest exciting artist from EMI Classics
When a record company launches a new young star, there’s always a slight suspicion that content is taking second place to style and presentation. But with Korean pianist HJ Lim EMI Classics are unapologetic, and with every justification. HJ (Hyun-jung) Lim has come to fame not via the conventional international music competition circuit: EMI’s PR … [Read More]
DPRK unveils new fusion technology on Paris concert platform
At least three things are of interest in relation to the 14 March Paris performance of the Unhasu (은하수) Orchestra from North Korea. First: that it happened at all; second: how it was reported back home; and third, what it was that the orchestra was playing. The funding First, then. How did it get to … [Read More]
Concert notes: A Little Nightmare Music – Igudesman and Joo
“His parents must be so disappointed” I overheard a Korean woman say, of Joo Hyung-ki. “They wanted him to be a concert pianist, and he’s doing comedy instead.” It was the sort of thing that Maureen Lipman would say, in character as the proud Jewish mother. Joo, one half of the hilarious musical duo Igudesman … [Read More]
Cube United – Saharial reports from the Brixton Academy K-pop concert
For those of you who follow Kpop in the UK, and maybe those who don’t, Monday 5th December was a rather momentous occasion. 4minute, G.NA and BEAST, three of the five acts Cube Entertainment manage, came to London’s Brixton Academy as United Cube in the first really big K-pop event held in London. After a … [Read More]
Backstage with BEAST – a K-pop novice enjoys the United Cube concert
The queue of excited teenagers and twenty-somethings was snaking down the side of the Brixton Academy, patiently waiting to get into the gloomy insides to see Cube Entertainment’s main acts in what was billed as the UK’s first K-pop showcase. It was still 90 minutes before curtain up, and somewhere among the crowd a reporter … [Read More]
Sumi Jo: totally fabulous singing Mozart
Sumi Jo was totally fabulous tonight at the Cadogan Hall with the Academy of Ancient Music. Highlight was the encore – Mozart’s elaborate variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, in a duet with flautist Rachel Brown [Read More]
Concert notes: Sooeun Kwak with La-on G at the KCC
For the third event in the KCC’s concert series this year we were presented with Sooeun Kwak’s gayageum ensemble, “La-on G”. The ensemble’s name is a combination of the Korean word for “pleasant”, and “G” standing for any and all of Gayageum, Green, Global and Generation. The music performed by the ensemble is all composed … [Read More]
Festival visit: Jasmine Gwangju
Gwangju seems an event from the distant past, but in fact was only 31 years ago. This year, the archives which document the history of that brief uprising were listed by UNESCO in their Memory of the World register. With perfect timing, bearing in mind the democratic uprisings in the Arab world this year, the … [Read More]