Tongyeong International Music Festival

Fri 31.03.23, 19:00CET

Tongyeong, Republik Korea, Concert Hall

Maurice Ravel: Frontispiece

(Arr. by Pierre Boulez)

Luciano Berio: Sinfonia

for eight voices and orchestra

Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question

for orchestra (1908)

Johannes Brahms: Violin concerto in D major op. 77

Neue Vocalsolisten

Maria van Eldik, mezzo soprano (a.G.)

Johanna Vargas, high soprano

Susanne Leitz-Lorey, soprano

Truike van der Poel, mezzo-soprano

Michael Pflumm, tenor (a.G.)

Martin Nagy, tenor

Guillermo Anzorena, baritone

Andreas Fischer, bass

Leonidas Kavakos, violin

Tongyeong Festival Orchestra

Conductor David Robertson

Background

Luciano Berio: Sinfonia

Additional Information

Crashing Waves (Tongyeong Concert Hall) is a 14,400-square-foot, 1,300-seat concert hall located on a bluff overlooking the harbor of Tongyeong, South Korea. The hall was designed with the goal of adequately reproducing the music of Korean composer Isang Yun. The architectural concept reflects the symbolic union of the sea and music, as well as the utopia of the unification of South and North Korea. The multi-faceted concept of the building is dedicated to the life and work of Isang Yun. The Tongyeong Concert Hall has won major architectural awards, including the German Design Award.

www.german-architects.com

Isang Yun

The composer Isang Yung was born in 1917 near Tongyeong at a time when South Korea was a Japanese colony. Interested in building a musical life of international standing in his homeland while incorporating Korean elements, Isang Yun joined the resistance and was arrested and tortured in 1943. In the 1950s, Yun went to Paris to study, but soon moved to Berlin.

From there, he and his wife were kidnapped by the South Korean secret service in 1967 and charged with treason in South Korea. The background was Yun’s critical statements on the development of Park Chung-hee’s regime into a military dictatorship.

Only after trials in several instances and international interventions were Yun and his wife released in 1969. In 1971, both became German citizens. When Yun died in 1995, he was buried in Berlin. In 2018, his urn was brought to Tongyeong and interred near the Tongyeong Concert Hall overlooking the sea.