Lotte Concert Hall Stage Tour as VR Content... Pianist Sunwoo Yekwon as Docent

Pianist Sunwoo Yekwon (center) is listening to an explanation about the pipe organ at Lotte Concert Hall from organist Park Junho, along with Kim Sijin, the house manager of Lotte Concert Hall (right).
Photo by Lotte Cultural Foundation

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] The Lotte Cultural Foundation, in collaboration with LG Uplus, is launching the Lotte Concert Hall stage tour VR content titled "Art Delivered by Lotte Concert Hall."

Lotte Concert Hall has consistently offered stage tours that allow audiences to explore the interior of the venue and learn about the concert hall's structure and features. However, due to restrictions caused by the spread of COVID-19, and to enable more audiences to experience the concert hall in a new way, VR content was produced.

Pianist Sunwoo Yekwon serves as the special docent for this VR content, performing and leading the tour as the host.

The first part, "Asking Art and Lotte Concert Hall Answers," begins with Sunwoo Yekwon entering the auditorium from the audience’s perspective. Guided by Kim Sijin, the house manager of Lotte Concert Hall, they move to the seating area, where Sunwoo Yekwon and Manager Kim discuss the vineyard-style architecture, box-in-box structure, and other distinctive features of Lotte Concert Hall.

Next, the scene explores the pipe organ of Lotte Concert Hall, which has about 5,000 pipes and is located directly in front of the audience seats. Organist Park Junho, who leads the Lotte Concert Hall’s planned performance "Organ Odyssey," participates to explain the organ’s size?equivalent to the height of the building’s second floor?the 2.5 years taken from design to installation, the 68 different stops with unique tones, and the names of each keyboard. He also performs one of the most famous organ pieces, Bach’s "Toccata and Fugue." Afterwards, the tour moves to the piano storage room, where explanations are given about instrument maintenance methods preserved by temperature and humidity control systems, and Sunwoo Yekwon explains the criteria for selecting a piano.

The second part, "Seeing with the Eyes, Hearing with the Ears, Touching the Heart," features the piano chosen by Sunwoo Yekwon being set up on stage, followed by a live performance by Sunwoo Yekwon. In this VR content, Sunwoo Yekwon plays Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 10 in C major and the "Turkish March" arranged by Arkady Volodos. These two pieces are also included in Sunwoo Yekwon’s recent album "Mozart," released under the Decca label. Sunwoo Yekwon’s delicate touch and meticulous yet gentle performance are conveyed to the VR audience through multi-angle filming techniques, showing perspectives rarely seen before.

Sunwoo Yekwon stated, "Usually, I only participate in performances focusing on playing on stage, but this time I got to explore the concert hall more thoroughly from the audience seats to behind the stage, which felt both unfamiliar and special. Through this content, which blends the curious perspective of the audience with the more considerate viewpoint of the performer, I hope more people will feel familiar with the concert hall space and visit the venue comfortably."

The VR content "Art Delivered by Lotte Concert Hall," jointly presented by Lotte Concert Hall and LG Uplus, will be available for free to users on the U+VR app, which offers over 2,000 VR contents. Additionally, VR experiences will be available at the lobby photo wall during the Lotte Concert Hall year-end concerts on December 30?31.