This year’s Tongyeong International Music Festival will pay homage to the late composer Isang Yun in his hometown of Tongyeong through the festival’s new theme of “Voyage.”
The festival will commemorate the 20th anniversary of Yun’s death.
The Korean-German composer was praised for his constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between Europe and Asia and his personal “voyage” to create different styles and sounds with his compositions. The annual TIMF will be opening its curtains this season on March 27 for its 10-day, 19-performance run.
The Sinfonieorchester Basel Orchestra. (Courtesy of Sinfonieorchester Basel)
Music lovers can flock to the brisk seaside of Tongyeong to spend their nights basking in contemporary music and enjoying spring’s cherry blossoms.
The festival will kick off with the performance by the world-renowned 139-year-old Basel Symphony Orchestra of Switzerland. The orchestra will be led by American conductor and pianist Dennis Russell Davies and will be accompanied by violinist Yumi Hwang-Williams and pianist Fazıl Say.
The orchestra will be performing one of Yun’s masterpieces, Violin Concerto No. 3, as well as Mozart’s Symphony No. 32 and, for the first time in Korea, Leonard Bernstein’s 1949 symphony, The Age of Anxiety.
This year’s music festivities will also feature an Asian Composers Showcase ― highlighting four up-and-coming composers from East Asia on March 29 ― and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, which will perform Stravinsky’s Concerto in D “Basle,” Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony in C Minor op. 110a and pianist Say’s Piano Concerto No. 2 “Silk Road” and Gezi Park III. It will be held on March 31 under the baton of Yip Wing-sie.
Concert performances for the first week of April will kick off with the Quatuor Diotima all-male string quartet and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera Greek.
TIMF will then close its curtains on April 5 with the Tongyeong Festival Orchestra’s finale concert featuring the late Yun’s Reak, Sibelius’ Violin Concerto and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. The orchestra will be led by conductor Christoph Poppen and joined by Latvian classical violinist Gidon Kremer and Chilean soprano Carolina Ullrich.
For more information on upcoming performances, visit www.timf.org.
By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)