Korean Music Performance Blends Old and New

By Will Connor

Last Saturday night at UH Music Department’s Orvis auditorium, two visiting musicians from Korea took the audience on a journey into Korea’s traditional past and into her exciting future simultaneously. Chae Suk Lee and Sun Ok Kim presented music from the 18th and 20th centuries on traditional Korean instruments.

Chay Suk Lee

Lee is a master kayagum, or 17-string zither, player and she was accompanied by Kim on the changgo, a Korean hourglass-shaped drum. During the first piece, an A’Ak or court music form, the duet was joined by a troupe of local Korean instrumentalists that included Joo Min Shin on haegun (spike fiddle), Ri Choi ontaegum (a transverse flute with a buzzing membrane), Soo Youn Kim doubling up on kayagum, and featuring UH’s own Dr. Byong Won Lee on changgo. The piece was beautiful, weaving heterophonic lines between the melodic instruments while rotating through a series of time signatures over the course of the 20 minute work. As always, Korean A’Ak is alluring and draws the audience in, lifting them through the presentation until the final notes fade out.

The next two pieces where compositions from the 90s by Byung-ki Hwang. The works were based on a 7th century folksong and exhibited a wonderful blend of traditional timbres and melodic contours while exploring modern sounds with varying scale forms and chromatic passages. The nature of the kayagum is to find and emphasis microtones and pitch bends and Hwang used this technique tastefully within the pieces. Lee mastery of the Kayagum was paramount in pulling off these very difficult pieces. Both works were breath-taking and left the audience hungry for more.

The last presentation of the night was a sanjo based on a 19th century form. Asanjo is improvised within strict parameters and the changgo player truly has to be an expert to hold the performance together. Kim’s encouragements and time signature changes were well called and Lee brilliantly increased the intensity of the performance from beginning to end, bringing an exciting close to the programme for all listeners.

Sun Ok Kim

More UH Music Department Ethnomusicology performances are coming up in the next few weeks with the UH Gamelan Ensemble performing on Saturday, October 28th at the Barbara Smith Ampitheatre and Jefferson Hall hosts two Indian classical performances next weekend, Saturday, October 21st, 8:00pm and Sunday, October 22nd, 4:00pm when Manilal Nag and his daughter Mita Nag present a series of Sitar Ragas featuring Pandit Ananda Gopal Bandopadhyay on Tabla.

For information on other upcoming musical treats from the UH Music department, go to http://www.hawaii.edu/uhmmusic or call 95-MUSIC.