Concert Program

Program

Biographies

Hyunchae Kim

Hyunchae Kim holds a B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. in Gayageum Performance from Seoul National University, specializing in gayageum sanjo. A Certified Apprentice of National Intangible Cultural Heritage ‘Gayageum Sanjo and Byeongchang’, she won the prestigious Presidential Prize at the 2019 Gurye Gayageum Competition in Korea.

As a versatile soloist and ensemble artist, Kim has premiered works by contemporary composers such as Hyo-shin Na and Baudouin de Jaer, alongside releasing albums that bridge traditional and modern repertoires.

Her commitment to education and cross-cultural dialogue spans global institutions. She has taught at Seoul National University and Gachon University, served as a Visiting Artist at Stanford, Indiana, and Augsburg Universities, and worked as a Guest Artist and Lecturer at Northern Illinois University.

Since 2023, Kim has served as Artist-in-Residence at the Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago (KPAC), where she actively performs, teaches, and directs the SoriBeat youth ensemble.

Juho Kim

Juho Kim is a Korean traditional percussionist who graduated from National Gugak High School and Seoul National University, where he majored in Korean traditional percussion. He began studying percussion at the age of 11 and has developed his career through performances, education, and international cultural exchanges.

He has performed internationally in countries including Indonesia, Sweden, Belgium, Vietnam, and Thailand, sharing the energy and artistry of Korean traditional music with diverse audiences.

Currently, he serves as an Artist in Residence at the Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago (KPAC), where he performs, teaches Korean traditional percussion, and promotes Korean culture through educational programs and community performances.

Hye-jin Yoon

Composer Hye-jin Yoon received her B.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University, and continued her studies at Visva-Bharati University in India, where she received her Ph.D. in musicology. Through ongoing field research into non-Western music and cultures, she has explored the relationship between silence and sound as a central theme in her compositions. Her work ranges from reconstructing music from historical scores to experimental composition, blending her distinctive musical voice with the characteristics of traditional Korean music.

Her output includes chamber music for Korean instruments, mixed ensembles of Korean and Western instruments, vocal works, and music theatre. Major works include Song of the Shadow of a Cat That Died in Daylight, The Realization of Oblivion, There It Is—Be Intoxicated, Spirit Medium, Gangsanmujin, Sasiril, and Flight into Absolute Solitude. Her albums include Soundscape and Jeongnyeom (情念).

She is currently a professor in the Department of Korean Music at Chonnam National University.

Program Notes

Yeongsanhoesang (靈山會相)
Hahyeon Dodri, Yeombul Dodri, Taryeong, Gunak

Yeongsanhoesang is a central work in the Korean classical repertoire, with roots in Buddhist vocal music performed to accompany court dance. The Akhakgwebeom, a treatise on Korean music compiled in 1493 during the reign of King Seongjong (1469–1494), records a performance in which singers chanted the seven syllables “Yeong-san-hoe-sang-bul-bo-sal” (靈山會相佛菩薩), referring to the Buddha and bodhisattvas assembled at Vulture Peak, with instrumental accompaniment. Over time, the vocal text fell out of use, and the music developed into an instrumental tradition.

Repetition and melodic variation played an important role in the development of Yeongsanhoesang. Dodri, a term associated with returning or repeating, reflects these processes and appears in the titles of several pieces within the suite. Through melodic variation and the addition of new pieces, Yeongsanhoesang gradually took shape as a nine-piece suite during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It became a central repertoire of pungnyu, a tradition of music cultivated for artistic enjoyment and personal refinement. The complete suite unfolds from a spacious, contemplative opening toward a lively, spirited conclusion.

Today’s performance presents the final four pieces of the suite—Hahyeon Dodri, Yeombul Dodri, Taryeong, and Gunak—on solo gayageum.

Cheonyeon Manse (千年萬世)
Gyemyeon Garak Dodri, Yangcheong Dodri

Cheonnyeonmanse is a suite whose title conveys a wish for lasting peace and longevity. It developed within the pungnyu chamber music tradition cultivated in the private salons of late Joseon Korea. During the nineteenth century, Yangcheong Dodri and Ujo Garak Dodri emerged as variations of Ut Dodri and were joined by Gyemyeon Garak Dodri to form a three-piece suite. Traditionally performed after Yeongsanhoesang, the suite is known for its light, buoyant character and rhythmic vitality.

Today’s performance presents an abbreviated version of the suite, featuring Gyemyeon Garak Dodri and Yangcheong Dodri as a duet for gayageum and yanggeum.

The yanggeum (洋琴) is a Korean hammered dulcimer belonging to an instrument family with roots in the santur traditions of Persia and neighboring regions. It reached Korea through China in the eighteenth century. Its name combines 洋, meaning “Western,” and 琴, meaning “stringed instrument,” reflecting its introduction as an instrument of Western origin. Compared with related dulcimers in other countries, the traditional Korean yanggeum has a relatively small soundbox and fine metal strings. It is played with a single slender bamboo beater held in one hand, producing a delicate, clear tone.

Urak (羽樂), Female Gagok
Gagok is a genre of Korean classical vocal music in which lyric poems are sung to the accompaniment of a chamber ensemble. Traditionally performed in the private salons of the aristocracy and gatherings of professional singers, its repertoire is distinguished by the singer’s gender and the musical mode. Its composition and performance follow a highly stylized structure shaped by the aristocracy and literati from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. Also known as Manyeonjanghwanjigok, or “Music of Eternal Joy,” gagok embodies the cultivated aesthetic of this tradition.

Today’s performance features Urak from the female gagok repertoire, performed by Hyunchae Kim, who sings while accompanying herself on the gayageum. Female gagok singing is distinguished by the use of falsetto in the upper register. The poem sung in Urak expresses longing for a beloved and the hope that a promised meeting will endure even through a storm:

The wind roars as though to shake the earth,
and the rain comes pouring down.
I sent a letter to my beloved,
pledging that we would meet today.
How could you come through such wind and rain?
Yet if you truly come,
surely we are bound by fate.

Sound Remaining Silent (2020)
The form and sound of the jeongak gayageum—the ancient gayageum—appear to embody stillness, yet hold within them a dynamic quality of continuous movement. The vibrations of sound and silence held within its body, the bridges resting upon it like birds’ feet, and the soft yet coarse texture of the silk strings gently leaning against them invite us to listen beyond the sounds produced, attending instead to the vibration and silence through which sound emerges.

Reflexivity—focusing on the sound of one’s own voice so that one’s inner nature may hear it—seeks an unobstructed understanding that transcends language and the unspoken knowledge it conveys. The process of distinguishing one’s own sound from the myriad sounds naturally heard from the outside, and revealing both that sound and its inner life, is not unlike what the gayageum embodies. It also resonates with the act of making things visible through visual art.

This work grew out of a dialogue with the gayageum performer who commissioned it. Drawing on images and sounds from several visual sources, I incorporated these materials into the musical structure, focusing on the point where seeing and hearing intersect. In everyday life, sight belongs to a realm of stillness and silence; paradoxically, however, that realm can reveal itself through sound. In this work, I sought to give musical form to what this intersection suggests. Yet sound and meaning are ultimately realized through the performer, and the work finds its completion as its sounds unfold in performance. (written by Yoon)