New Voices from Korea at Walt Disney Concert Hall

Unsuk Chin curates an evening exploring the diverse and dynamic voices of Korean and Korean-born composers including two world premieres. The first is a new violin concerto, performed by SooBeen Lee, by Yie-Eun Chun whose often playful music has found its inspiration in everything from Lewis Carroll’s and Hans Christian Andersen’s stories to stop-and-go traffic in New York City. The premiere of reflective - silky and rough, composed by Dongjin Bae, revels in the dual and contrasting sounds of the flute as Yubeen Kim balances his instrument’s smooth and lyric quality with its raw and breathy character. Preceding the premieres, Sun-Young Pahg’s L‘autre moitie de Silence (The Other Half of Silence) showcases the traditional Korean bamboo flute called the daegeum in a suite of five miniatures based on the work of Korean writer Jae-Young Yoo. Juri Seo’s music is often built on alternating textures and tonality, and her piano concertino shifts between fanfare, a jazz fugue, and an homage to Robert Schumann. Closing the evening, Chin’s Gougalon channels “imaginary folk music” to explore her memory of Seoul in the 1960s: a fast-modernizing city that juxtaposed glittering shopping centers and traditional wooden food stalls. Subtitled “Scenes from a Street Theater,” Gougalon references and reimagines traveling musician troupes from Chin’s childhood who would attract crowds of villagers with plays and stunts all while selling dubious homemade medicines.