London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Seoul Philharmonic, Unsuk Chin and Sunwook Kim at Cadogan Hall

A tour-de-force concerto that will leave you breathless, Tchaikovsky’s romantic piano concerto opens this inaugural visit from the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra with soloist Sunwook Kim. Programme Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Unsuk Chin Frontispiece for orchestra (2019) Stravinsky The Firebird Suite (1919) Performers Osmo Vänskä conductor Sunwook Kim piano Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra Sunwook Kim came to international … [Read More]

Looking back at 2015: Culture, sport and tourism

In the first of four articles looking back over 2015, we recall some of the culture, sports and heritage stories that made the news. Heritage The historic Baekje sites were listed by UNESCO as world heritage. UNESCO also listed in their Memory of the World register some Confucian woodblock texts and records of the family … [Read More]

Looking back at 2014: Domestic news

Our final look back at 2014: mainly domestic news stories from South Korea: The Sewol and safety culture The MV Sewol capsized on 16 April, causing the death of 304 passengers. A number of factors contributed to the disaster, including lax safety inspections, unsafe modifications, unsecured cargo, overloading, and an inexperienced crew hired on temporary … [Read More]

The Seoul Philharmonic – a young orchestra with “an extraordinary sense of adventure”

On 27 August, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra made its Proms debut, the first Korean orchestra to play at the famous music festival. At the Pre-Prom talk earlier that evening across the road at the Royal College of Music, Michael Fine and Hyunjin Park of the Seoul Philharmonic, and Dr Haekyung Eom of Liverpool University, talked … [Read More]

Seoul Philharmonic records Unsuk Chin for DG

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Chung Myung-whun were in the recording studio for Deutsche Grammophon last month recording Unsuk Chin’s concertos for Sheng (with Wu Wei), Piano (with Sunwook Kim) and Cello (with Alban Gerhardt – who premiered the work at the BBC Proms in 2009 – LKL review here). The orchestra will be coming … [Read More]

The London Korean Links Awards 2011

The sixth of LKL’s annual unscientific and very personal recognition of the best things of last year. And in the field of film, books and CDs what is encouraging is that there is so much to choose from. There were also plenty of good Korean cultural events in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere, but there was … [Read More]

FT asks for Unsuk Chin

The FT reviews Seoul Philharmonic / Chung Myung-whun playing Debussy and Ravel on DG, a release which coincides with their debut at the Edinburgh Festival http://t.co/Tf9s3on # The playing has precision and delicacy, showcased in the Mother Goose suite, but also the machine-like evenness characteristic of Asian orchestras. La Mer and La Valse are too … [Read More]