Rain, a South Korean actor and singer, has been voted the most influential person in the world in an online poll. In a poll conducted by TIME magazine, Rain ranked first in the voting for this year’s most influential people. The 2011 TIME 100 poll closed on April 14 with Rain in the lead. Taiwan’s Jay Chou and Britain’s Susan Boyle took second and third place. Rain received the highest number ...

Exhibitions “Koo Bohnchang”: One of South Korea’s most renowned photographers, Koo Bohn-chang, is holding a solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery. Elements from his other series as well as his personal collections of eclectic objects are on display, giving the viewers a hint of Koo’s youth, attitudes toward photography and more. The exhibition runs through April 30 at Kukje Gallery in Sogyeok-dong, c...

Landing fresh from a performance at California’s Coachella music festival, Swedish indie pop band The Radio Dept. are to play their first ever Korean gig next week. The band, whose music was featured in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” are excited to play for their fans here, singer Johan Duncanson told The Korea Herald by phone from a recording space in Stockholm, in the midst of rehearsals ...

LOS ANGELES ― Daniel Catan, an opera composer and librettist whose works including “Il Postino” and “Florencia en el Amazonas” have been praised for their lyrical romanticism and humane generosity of spirit, died suddenly Saturday in Austin, Texas. He was 62. Catan’s death was announced by the Butler School of Music of the University of Texas, where he was a visiting artist. The cause has not be...

Concert tour schedules of foreign music artists in Korea have been rocked by last month’s massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan and local concert organizers claim they are finding it difficult to retrieve their sudden losses. To the big disappointment of rock fans here, concert organizer 9 Entertainment recently said that Beady Eye, the U.K. group consisting of Liam Gallagher and other former ...

JYJ’s Kim Junsu was voted the best singer of all Korean idol group members, a local survey has shown. A local newspaper conducted the survey on ten vocal trainers to rank the Korean idol groups and their members based on how well they sing. The results showed 2AM, a four-member male vocal group, as the best. Big Bang took second place. Girl group Kara, who gained sensational popularity in Japa...

U.S. singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles said she is looking forward to visiting Seoul to hold her first concert in Korea, as she is already familiar with Korean culture. Bareilles plans to showcase her latest songs and familiar songs by other artists at the Hongdae V-Hall in Seoul on May 14 at 7 p.m. “I know that Korean food is amazing and I heard a lot from people who traveled around Korea that ...

Universal Music Group International, which has prestigious label Deutsche Grammophon, expects that the Korean demand for classical music to grow faster in the coming years on the back of the country’s growing wealth and interest in the genre. “The first thing you need to invest in classical music is a market that is confident of growth. The second thing is an extremely accelerating level of weal...

Seoul Philharmonic signs long-term license agreement with Deutsche Grammophon Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director Chung Myung-whun said on Thursday the orchestra had inked a long-term license contract with Deutsche Grammophon. “It’s been six years since I took the helm of the SPO. Signing a contract with the world’s top classical music record label Deutsche Grammophon is a big step,” ...

German violinist to hold recital on May 3 in Seoul German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is coming to Seoul for the first time in three years to hold a recital on May 3 at the Seoul Arts Center’s Concert Hall. The Grammy Award winner’s upcoming concert is part of her Asia 2011 tour, taking place from April to May, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of her debut as a soloist in 1976 at the Lucerne ...

South Korean singer Rain currently ranks first on the 2011 TIME 100 poll of the “Most Influential People in the World,” raising expectations that he might steal the top slot when the final results come out on April 14. The online voting started on Monday when Rain attracted some 47,600 votes, outpacing runner up Chris Colfer, the American actor of “Glee” fame, by 20,000 votes, illustrating Rain’...

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) ― Just feet from a methadone clinic at a grimy crossroads in Portland, transit officials and police are hoping a touch of class will chase off vagrants, vandals and ne’er-do-wells that loiter near a busy transit stop. Since November, the regional transit department has approved the playing of classical music in an effort to ward off the kind of crimes that happen when peopl...