The annual Ditto Festival is returning for its 10th season backed by its founder and music director, violist Richard Yongjae O’Neill, who says this year’s festivities are all about paying homage to one of the heroes of humanity with its theme “Beethoven: Beyond the Limits.”
The Ditto Festival officially opened its curtains on Sunday with a special performance by Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and French pianist Lucas Debargue during the duo’s Asia Tour, marking the first recital program Kremer has taken part in for 22 years.
The festival will continue on with a myriad of classical music performances until July 3 at Seoul Arts Center and the LG Arts Center.
Ditto Festival music director and violist Richard Yongjae O’Neill (back row, left) speaks at a press conference held at the Under Stand Avenue in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, Monday. (Yonhap News)
“This year’s festival celebrates one of humanity’s greatest heroes, Beethoven,” said O’Neill during a press conference held at the Under Stand Avenue in Seongdong-gu, Seoul on Monday. “It’s our most ambitious festival, yet.”
“I think for a lot of us it’s very easy to take Beethoven for granted because he is everywhere,” he added. “For me, as a performer, there’s a weight of the world when you play his music, because it didn’t come easy to him at all. ... Beethoven was probably the greatest revolutionary in all of music history.”
O’Neill, along with his fellow members of the Ehnes Quartet -- violinists James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti and cellist Robert DeMaine -- are slated to perform Beethoven’s entire string quartet cycle in six concert performances starting June 25.
“Great music has no expiration date,” said the violist. “It could have been written 500 years ago, or yesterday. Our job as musicians is to re-create it (the music) for you in real time. If we do our job well, it should be like Beethoven wrote it and that it’s lost none of the validity, none of the magic of the power of its expression.”
Local violinist Zia Hyunsu Shin performs at a press conference held for the Ditto Festival at the Under Stand Avenue in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, Monday. (Yonhap News)
This year’s festivities will include performances by the Vienna Chamber Orchestra which is on its Asia tour, as well as recitals by Korean violinist Zia Hyunsu Shin. This year’s event also marks violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Michael Nicolas’ final performances as part of the Ensemble Ditto, with the two musicians looking to move on and start their own ensembles.
“Being a member of Ensemble Ditto since 2008 has been one of the best parts of my life as a musician,” said Jackiw during the press conference. “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done. Ensemble Ditto was an initiative to introduce classical chamber music to new audiences. ... That was a difficult objective, but I feel that over the course of a decade, we’ve really accomplished that.”
Ticket prices for the Ditto Festival’s performances vary per concert. For more information, visit
www.dittofest.com.
By Julie Jackson (
juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)