“Compare Korea to China or Russia,” the composer Unsuk Chin said in a recent interview. “If you think how small the country is, it’s amazing how many talented musicians are coming out.”
South Korean artists are prominent on classical music’s most prestigious stages. The young pianists Seong-Jin Cho and Yunchan Lim sell out Carnegie Hall. The conductor Myung-whun Chung was recently named the next music director of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Chin’s new opera, “The Dark Side of the Moon,” premiered in Hamburg in May.
Now, to explore South Korea’s creative output, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is presenting the Seoul Festival from Tuesday through June 10.
It is the latest in a series of themed Philharmonic events, including dives into Iceland and Mexico. Around 2018, the orchestra and its artistic leader at the time, Chad Smith, asked Chin to help plan a South Korean iteration, but the plans were derailed by the pandemic. About half of the original programming has made it intact onto this year’s concerts.
“I really wanted to present the youngest generation of composers, conductors and musicians,” said Chin, 63.
That generation has emerged from what she called “a very long cultural tradition.” The country’s embrace of Western musical culture began around the turn of the 20th century, and a Western-style compositional tradition took hold with figures like Isang Yun (1917-95), who wrote avant-garde music for Western instruments — but with a style that attempted to translate old-school Korean techniques.
“For the younger generation, there are so many different styles,” Chin said. “They don’t feel close to Korean traditional music any more, and they’re much more free than me and the older generations to take on any style of composition.”
The Seoul Festival includes two concerts featuring the full Philharmonic, pairing contemporary South Korean pieces with Brahms; a collaboration between Ensemble TIMF — from the Tongyeong International Music Festival, where Chin is artistic director — and the LA Phil New Music Group; and a program of chamber works by Debussy, Schoenberg, Brahms and Schumann, played by rising South Korean musicians.
In the interview, Chin spoke about some of the participating artists, herself included. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Sunghyun Lee and Whan Ri-Ahn
I knew I wanted to commission these young composers, who are both around 30. Both have great careers in Europe at the moment, and both are going back to South Korea for their military service. Sunghyun Lee’s style is quite contemporary, but it isn’t dogmatic. He has lots of freedom to use any tools, any musical languages. His music is always full of fantasy. Whan Ri-An is currently studying with George Benjamin in London; before that, he also composed in a very contemporary style, but he’s learning different musical styles, trying to find his own voice.
Inmo Yang
He is one of the best Korean violinists and just made his New York Philharmonic debut this year. I’ve supported him for several years, and I see a great future for him. His repertoire range is very, very wide, from Bach to contemporary music. And he’s a very curious, intellectual person, reading lots of books; his understanding of music is outstanding. I’m very happy to give him the chance for his L.A. Phil debut.
Sun-Young Pahg
“L’Autre Moitié de Silence” is a piece from several years ago for chamber ensemble and the daegum, a large Korean bamboo flute. I liked it; it has a very unique mixture of Western-style instruments and traditional Korean ones. The composer was successful in planting the sound colors — which are mostly French, somehow — between two cultures and styles. The daegum plays its own melody, and it’s quite Korean, but it mixes with the other instruments and creates something new.
Texu Kim
He studied with me in a master class in Korea, and he now teaches in San Diego. We’re including a revised version of this viola concerto, “Ko-Oh.” There aren’t so many viola concertos, and the piece is special because it presents the instrument in a unique light. It’s not such radical contemporary music; I think he’s been influenced by the American music scene.
Ensemble TIMF
I’ve been leading the Tongyeong International Music Festival for three years, and this ensemble is based there. It’s made up of some of the best young musicians in South Korea, and they can play any kind of music, but it’s mostly contemporary repertoire, and the premieres of commissioned pieces. On this track, they’re playing a piece by Dongjin Bae, who has a premiere in the festival. That new piece is for flute and ensemble, and the soloist, Yubeen Kim, just became the principal flute of the San Francisco Symphony. So on this program, with Sun-Young Pahg’s “L’Autre Moitié de Silence” for daegum, we’ll hear the contrast between the Western-style and traditional-style flute.
Juri Seo
One of the other pieces that Ensemble TIMF will play is this one, by Juri Seo, who teaches at Princeton. She’s also a pianist. I don’t know her personally, but I’ve been impressed by her music. The composers in this program are around their 40s. I wanted to showcase the younger generation — or at least the generation younger than me.
Unsuk Chin
In Hong Kong, between the big buildings there are traditional-style shops and restaurants on the street, which reminded me of South Korea in the 1960s and ’70s, when I was young. It brought back a memory from my childhood: I was seeing street theater — they weren’t professional actors or singers, but they sang and played and acted out small things. I had forgotten it completely, but when I was in Hong Kong it came back to me. So “Gougalon” is kind of a street theater piece. The wind players also play percussion instruments, and the violin is detuned; it sounds as if it’s playing in the wrong way. The piano is prepared, so it sounds broken. It’s not complicated or difficult contemporary music; it’s just music for fun.
Zachary Woolfe is the classical music critic of The Times.
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