From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Hwang
Byungki |
Hangul |
황병기 |
Hanja |
黃秉冀 |
Revised
Romanization |
Hwang
Byeonggi |
McCune–Reischauer |
Hwang
Pyŏngki |
- This is a Korean name; the
family name is Hwang.
Hwang Byungki (b. Seoul,
1936) is the foremost South Korean player of the gayageum,
a 12-string zither with silk strings. Hwang is also a
composer and an authority on Korean sanjo, a form
of traditional Korean instrumental music.
In 1951 he began playing gayageum
at The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing
Arts in Seoul, where he studied under the famous gayageum
masters Kim Yeong-yun (김영윤),
Kim Yun-deok (김윤덕),
and Shim Sang-geon (심상건).
In 1959 he graduated from Seoul National University
School of Law.
In 1962 he began composing concert
and film music using traditional Korean instruments. He
presented the premiere performance of Alan Hovhaness's
Symphony no. 16 in South Korea in 1963. In 1964 he
traveled around the world to Europe, the United States,
Japan, and Southeast Asian countries, giving gayageum
performances in each place.
In 1985 he served as visiting
professor of Korean Music at Harvard University.
Since producing his fifth gayageum
album in 2007, Hwang continues to compose innovative
Korean music. Ranging in style from the evocation of
traditional genres to avant-garde experimentation, a
selection of these pieces is available on a series of
five albums. He is an emeritus professor of Korean music
at Ewha Womans University. Hwang also teaches a course
entitled "The Introduction to Korean Traditional
Music" at Yonsei University in Seoul.
Hwang serves on the government's
Cultural Properties Preservation Committee, and in 2000
was appointed to the National Academy of Arts.
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Seoul
Philharmonic Orchestra |
Hangul |
서울시립교향악단 |
Hanja |
서울市立交響樂團 |
Revised
Romanization |
Seoul
Sirip Gyohyang Akdan |
McCune–Reischauer |
Sŏul
Sirip Kyohyang Akdan |
The Seoul Philharmonic
Orchestra, founded in 1945, is one of the oldest and
most famous orchestras in South Korea. Its first foreign
tour came on a 1965 trip to Japan, followed by
performances in Southeast Asia in 1977, the United
States in 1982, 1986 and 1996, a 1988 tour of Europe
before the Seoul Olympics that year, and a 1997
performance in Beijing. The Philharmonic is an
incorporated foundation since 2005. Its current music
director is Myung-Whun Chung.
The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO),
which was founded in January 1948, has a longer history
than any other Korean orchestra. In February 1948, the
orchestra held its opening concert, conducted by Maestro
Seong-Tae Kim. In October of the same year, the Seoul
Philharmonic Society was formed to provide support for
the orchestra. The society published the music monthly
Philharmony in the following year. After a subscription
concert in the Seoul Civic Hall on June 25, 1950, the
orchestra had to suspend its activities due to the
outbreak of the Korean War, but resumed performance with
the name of the Naval Symphony Orchestra, just five
months later, to soothe the broken hearts of Koreans
during the war.
In August 1957, the Seoul
Metropolitan Council passed "The Seoul Metropolitan
Ordinances to Install a City-Run Orchestra", the
Naval Symphony Orchestra became the Seoul Philharmonic
Orchestra, the first Korean orchestra funded by a
government. The launching ceremony for the orchestra
with triple winds took place in the city council’s
chamber. Saeng-Ryo Kim was appointed its first Chief
Conductor. Since then, the SPO has helped the symphonies
of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky take root
as basic repertoire in the Korean music community.
It was through these concerts that
such names as Kyung-Sook Lee, Kun-Woo Paik, Kyung-Wha
Chung, Dong-Suk Kang and Myung-Whun Chung, who have
finally become maestros to represent the Korean music
community, were able to blossom.
With the aim of growing to a major
orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra was
re-launched as an incorporated foundation on June 1,
2005 and appointed Myung-Whun Chung as its Music
Director (he had been Artistic Advisor in 2005).
The orchestra under Chung
performed the nine symphonies of Beethoven in 2006 and
all of the symphonies and concertos of Brahms in 2007.
Since the re-launch as an
incorporated foundation, the Seoul Philharmonic
Orchestra has been performing with such world-class
conductors as Charles Dutoit, Alexander Frey, Pinchas
Zukerman, James Judd, Pascal Rophe, Xian Zhang, Mikko
Franck, Andrey Boreyko, and Francois-Xavier Roth, as
well as such distinguished musicians as Viviane Hagner (Vn),
Alexander Melnikov (Pf), Ilya Gringolts (Vn), Julian
Lloyd Webber, (Vc) Li Wei (Vc) Nicholas Angelich (Pf),
Hakan Hardenberger (Tp) Hae-Sun Kang (Vn), Xuefei Yang (Gt),
Gary Graffman (Pf), Colin Currie (Per.), Alexei Lubimov
(Pf), Martin Frost (Cl), and Richard Yongjae O'Neil (Va).
Focus is also placed on
interaction with modern music: the Seoul Philharmonic
Orchestra adopted the composer-in-residence system for
the first time in Korea when it was re-launched as an
incorporated foundation, and welcomed Unsuk Chin as its
first Composer-in-Residence. Chin, honored by the
Grawemeyer Award in 2004, and awarded the Arnold
Schoenberg Prize in 2005, is a Korean composer,
following Eak-Tai Ahn and Isang Yun. Ms Chin has
directed a series of modern music titled Ars Nova since
2006 to introduce Korean music lovers to masterpieces of
modern music. Most concerts are of thematic nature.
Featured in Fall 2006 was an orchestral concert titled
Early & New. In alignment with the Beethoven
Symphony Cycle, which was at the heart of the
orchestra’s performances in 2006, a program called
'Different Beethoven' was presented. In Spring 2007, two
'Ligeti Memorial Concerts' were held; an analogue
concept was presented in Fall 2008 with the 'Messiaen
Centenary Concerts'. The concerts in Fall 2007 titled 'ViolaViola'
displayed different contemporary approaches to strings
in general and to the viola in particular. In Spring
2008, 'Couleurs exotiques' demonstrated how profoundly
modern classical music has been influenced by
non-European musical cultures; in the same season
'America' showcased the epochal innovations of American
maverick composers. Until now, this series has featured
60 Korean premieres - more than thirty of them Asian
first performances - of major works by composers such as
Webern, Messiaen, Cage, Scelsi, Xenakis, Boulez,
Stockhausen, Ligeti and George Benjamin. In several
concerts commissions by major Korean composers have been
premiered.
In close accordance with the
concert programmes, workshops, lectures and additional
spectacles have been held, among them a presentation of
Hugo Verlinde's digital art, and a performance of the
ensemble 'Stringraphy'.