Six of the representative vocal powerhouses of SM Entertainment gathered on Wednesday night to perform an intimate recital show in front of 800 fans for the “SM The Ballad Vol.2 Joint Recital.”

The special recital was held in commemoration of the agency’s second ballad album project, titled “Breath.” Under the theme of painful break-ups, this year’s ballad singles project features collaborative work by eight SM artists from Korea and China, including SHINee’s Jonghyun, Girls’ Generation’s Taeyeon, Max Changmin from TVXQ, Krystal of f(x), EXO’s Chen, Yesung of Super Junior, Zhoumi of Super Junior-M, and Zhang Li Yin.

During the recital, the artists (except for Changmin and Yesung) took to the stage and performed the live version of the new singles for the first time, including the album’s title track “Breath,” which was sung by Taeyeon and Jonghyeon.

“I am so thankful for Taeyeon who sang the song so beautifully with me,” said Jonghyun during the show. “I recorded my part of the song first and I was really nervous, but Taeyeon really helped me out and encouraged me.”

“Jonghyun’s voice has such a wide range that it made things really comfortable for me,” Taeyeon responded. “He is very talented and has an especially unique tone to his voice.”


Other performances of the night included Taeyeon’s grief-stricken performance of her solo single “Set Me Free,” as well the male duo act of Jonghyun and Chen’s “A Day Without You” and Zhoumi’s solo performance of “Blind” (Chinese version).

“I don’t have a lot of opportunities to perform in Korea,” said Zhoumi. “It’s very nerve-racking, so aside from practicing my Korean, I have also been practicing for this performance for a month straight.”

The ten-track album was released Thursday and features two tracks ― “Breath” and “Blind” ― that were recorded in three languages: Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)