(gentle, peaceful piano music) (audience applauding) - Good evening.

Thank you very much for coming out.

(audience laughs) The live concerts have been missed very much, and it's really wonderful to be here with you all.

And thank you very much for coming out to share some Korean music with us.

The three songs in the first set that I would like to share with you tonight are the ones that are composed based on the Korean folk tunes.

The early form of Korean art songs, they tried out a lot of things in a Western style, and one of the beloved style was, they adopted a lot of Korean folk tunes into the music along with percussive rhythms.

And these two composers were actively working in the mid 20th centuries.

But they were born in that up in north, now is considered as the capital of the North Korea.

Back then, the Korea was one country, but now it's divided unfortunately.

They both were from the northern part of Korea, and they collected a lot of regional folk tunes and adapted into the Western style of the composition.

So relatively, the Korean art song history is relatively shorter than the Korean traditional music, Korean traditional music written for Korean instruments were probably about 400 years old.

If we are including the oral traditions probably it will go back even further.

But the history of the Korean art songs written in the Western European classical style will be very short.

So the 18th century and throughout the 19th century, turn of the century, Korea opened up its gate to a lot of countries.

And one of the first groups that came to Korea was missionaries.

And then they built a lot of schools, and then they brought beautiful hymnals also the liturgies for the services.

And those became really the great foundation of the Western-style music in Korea.

So these two composers Dongjin Kim and Dunam Jo, they have a very similar childhood.

Dongjin Kim's father was a minister in a church, and also Dunam Jo grew up in a Catholic church where the priest taught him how to read music.

So they both had a very early childhood Western education, and that they also went to the same school, which was founded by the American missionaries.

So can see some old relationship here with the Korea and also the American music education here.

So, you will hear very distinctive Korean folk rhythm in these songs, especially the first and the third piece.

The most popular rhythm pattern is called Gutgeori rhythm.

And it goes like this, ♪ Oom-pah-pah, oom-pah, oom-pah-pah, oom-pah ♪ So throughout the music, you will hear this rhythm pattern a lot.

The second piece is called "New Arirang."

It's because "Arirang" is the most popular Korean folk tune in Korea.

Probably some of you may know, or that heard about "Arirang."

Now it's arranged into the choral music or rearranged into a solo piece and is sung by many international artists or the groups, too.

The word, "Arirang", doesn't really mean anything, and it can not be really translated into a modern Korean word.

Some say that "Arirang" is an acting of climbing up the mountain.

So it's considered as a labor music.

But some say that it's a lover's action of climbing the mountain.

So back then probably the men left home to make money and leaving their families and the lovers and the wives and spouses.

So this became a sort of song of longing.

And in the second, "New Arirang," Dongjin Kim wrote it as a lover's lament.

I hope you enjoy them.

(audience applauding) (dramatic classical piano music) (Ryu-Kyung singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (slow, gentle classical piano music) (Ryu-Kyung singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (dramatic classical piano music) (Ryu-Kyung singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (audience applauding) - Good evening.

I'd talk about four different things before we start performance.

One is about the Korean, the language, the invention of Korean alphabet, and the brief history of the Korean music and Isang Yun's music composition.

The Korean language originated from the Altaic region of Eurasia.

Korea is related to, believe it or not, Turkish, Mongolian, and the Japanese languages.

Even though Korea is closely located and culturally very close to China, language is entirely different.

Korean is borrowing some Chinese characters because, going to now invention of Korean alphabet, was invented in 1443 during the Yi dynasty, fourth king, King Sejon ordered to the six scholars in Korea to invent a alphabet, because until that point, Koreans, only scholars or well-educated people or wealthy people could communicate in written forms until, you know, the commoners could not write anything else.

So King Sejong said that this doesn't make sense because translating Chinese characters to Korean language was not always right.

Many of you who have studied at IPA probably know this.

There are certain (indistinct) you need to know.

It depends on the language.

So that's what happened.

Korea has 5,000 years of history and 3000 years of folk music and dance tradition.

But first Korean Western-style of music was written in late 19th century.

That introduced by the missionaries in 1884, 1885, excuse me.

And so the first was written for band music, and because of that, obviously with the missionary, bringing the music Koreans who are learning hymn tunes and it was also called (speaking in foreign language), and first real Western-style music art song was written in 1919.

So, we only have left just a little over 100 years of Western-style music.

We came a long way.

The main Korean music in these days.

Two different, one is Korean traditional music, and the other one is obviously the Western-style music, and many composers started incorporating Korean traditional music, especially Isang Yun, who was born in early 1900, was introducing many Korean traditional folk music and unlike with some other composers who said, well, I'm writing this way, but you should be only singing in Western-style music.

Isang Yun said, no, no, no, no.

We are writing this.

I want you to really sing like traditional music with Western-style of singing.

According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music, Yun's fundamental aim is the development of Korean music through the means of Western music, a combination of a far Eastern performing practice with the European instruments and an expression of Asian imagination in terms of contemporary Western (indistinct).

His music we'll be performing tonight was written between 1941 in 1948, which is considered his early music in his style of music.

And you'll be finding that, as you've heard from Dr. Kim's performances, with lots of traditional music, he was encouraging us to actually to even include some traditional instruments.

So these days, many people are incorporating the traditional instruments.

Unfortunately, we didn't have those things here, so we will do our best to perform with a piano.

And we'll be making sound like traditional music.

So you'll be hearing some kind of weird slide and then a little bit, (indistinct) portamento what is written, but it'll be almost like sliding, and also trill that I'm singing particularly at this one place, you'll be finding (vocalizing), which is very different from (vocalizing), right?

So maybe you can find those things interesting.

Isn't he wonderful?

(audience laughs) (dramatic piano music) (Misook singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (slow, melancholy classical piano music) (Misook singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (light, dreamy classical piano music) (Misook singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (peaceful, elegant classical piano music) (Misook singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (peaceful classical piano music) (Misook singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (audience applauding) (dramatic classical piano music) (singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (audience applauding) - As a Korean-speaking person, I am very curious what Korean sounds to you, anybody would like to say, what does it to you, or how does it sound to you?

- [Woman In Audience] Beautiful!

- (laughs) Thank you!

You can hear a lot of bright vowels like Italian, right?

But we also have very dark consonants like Russia or German.

The duet that we just sang is a good example of Korean art song style that followed very much like a First Viennese School.

So who knows that the first First Viennese School composers are, let's see.

(crowd chattering) Those of you who did not sleep during the music history class.

(audience laughs) I think (laughs), I think that that duet (vocalizing), that very simple accompaniment followed very much like a Schubert.

Yes?

A Mendelssohn.

Very familiar, right, and early Beethoven art songs.

And also we could say very much like Italian bel canto style, Bellini, Donizetti.

So you can hear a lot a mixture of international influence here in the Korean music.

So those are the very beloved and like trend in Korean art song composition, but simultaneously, there are attempts within the composers that they would like to sort of kind of follow the late German lieder style, where the poetry and the music are really kind of incorporated very serious way.

I would say very much like a Mahler, late Brahms, very complicated chromatic harmonies, Strauss, even the early Schoenberg and (indistinct) influence that you will hear in the second set of Korean songs.

Those are considered as 20th century, 21st century, modern, contemporary Korean art songs.

The spirit and also the sentiment of those poetry sort of kind of reveals a Korean sentiment that was influenced by very reserved emotions, also Confucianism.

You know, where there are class systems and also the Buddhism, like especially the third song that you will hear, they are dealing with this death within a very Buddhist way.

And you will hear those sentiments and also the spirit in these songs.

Stylistically I don't think the Korean art song was influenced by the subtle French style.

Maybe we didn't like a cheese or, you know, just somehow, though, we didn't have much of the Debussy, Faure influence.

And Korean music, although the accompaniment is very much like Italian (speaking in foreign language), they're not very bright and sunny like Italian songs.

And I would definitely say that Korean modern, contemporary art song often follow the late composition of the German lieder style, and you will hear that.

I hope you like that.

(somber, dramatic piano music) (Ryu-Kyung singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (slow, dramatic piano music) (Ryu-Kyung singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (light, dreamy classical piano music) (Ryu-Kyung singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (audience applauding) - I think Doctor- (audience laughs) I think Dr. Kim mentioned a little bit about the "Arirang."

"Arirang" is known as our second national anthem.

It became that way, although it's traced to be 600 years old, originated, and there are so many different pockets of regions have their own versions of, I don't know, since (indistinct) 60 different ones.

There is a version made out with 3,600 different kinds of "Arirangs."

The theme that we were hearing, you're listening tonight was based on Gyeonggi area, which is actually surrounding Seoul area.

Maybe some of you might've head where Seoul is.

It's in that that region.

And this song particularly is not as sad anymore.

It has the original theme with a little bit variation and then lots of almost like dance movement is included.

And the second song I'll be singing is more, maybe more close to the Western style of music that is quite romantic, obviously.

(bright classical piano music) (Misook singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (slow, gentle classical piano music) (Misook singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (audience applauding) (gentle, romantic classical music) (singing in Korean) (audience applauding) (audience cheering)