30th Anniversary of Sejong Soloists
Concerts, Symposiums, Masterclasses, and
ARD Competition Winner Lee Hae-su's Recital
The summer classical music festival ‘Hicketnungk! Music Festival’ will be held from August 16 to September 2 at venues including the Seoul Arts Center, JCC Art Center, and Cosmos Art Hall.
‘Hicketnungk! Music Festival’ is a classical music festival hosted by the Sejong Soloists, a chamber music group celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It began in 2017 and is now in its seventh edition. The festival will feature diverse performances including stages curated by senior and junior Sejong Soloists members, concerts for infants and toddlers, symposiums, masterclasses, and a recital by violist Lee Hae-su, who won the German ARD Competition last year. Forty-nine artists will participate, including violist Richard Yongjae O'Neill, soprano Hwang Su-mi, and violinist David Chan, concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. ‘Hic et Nunc!’ is Latin for ‘Here and Now!’
On August 27, Yongjae O'Neill and Hwang Su-mi will perform with the Sejong Soloists at the Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall. O'Neill will collaborate on the viola concerto by American composer Christopher Theofanidis, which won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo in 2021. This piece will be performed in Asia for the first time. Hwang Su-mi, winner of the 2014 Queen Elisabeth Competition, will present an opera climax stage.
Over the past 30 years, the Sejong Soloists have produced nine concertmasters of world-renowned orchestras. Four of them will perform with the Sejong Soloists on August 24 at the Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall. The four concertmasters joining the stage are David Chan, Frank Huang of the New York Philharmonic, Andrew Wan of the Montreal Symphony, and Daniel Cho of the Hamburg Philharmonic.
They will perform the newly commissioned piece ‘with/out’ by composer Kim Taek-su, who is a professor at San Diego State University. This concerto for four violins and percussion carries a musical message celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Sejong Soloists. The work premiered globally at Carnegie Hall in New York last May and will be performed in Asia for the first time at this festival. The ‘Hicketnungk! Music Festival’ follows the principle of "showing the living classical music of the 21st century" by commissioning various contemporary composers to present their new works.
Violinist Paul Hwang and violist Lee Hae-su will also hold solo recitals on August 30 and 31, respectively. Paul Hwang gained attention in 2021 for arranging and performing the U.S. national anthem at the National Football League (NFL).
On the opening day, August 16, a masterclass will be held for members of the Viva Chamber Ensemble. The Viva Chamber Ensemble was founded in 2015 by the Korea Disabled People's Development Institute and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance to train talented disabled youth and young adults as professional musicians.
On August 23, a symposium by Todd Machover, a professor and composer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will take place at KAIST. On this day, members of the Sejong Soloists will premiere the world debut of Machover’s new work ‘Flow Symphony,’ composed using generative artificial intelligence (AI). Additionally, a special preview screening of the feature-length documentary
The Sejong Soloists was founded in 1994 by conductor Kang Hyo, who built his reputation as a leader at the Juilliard School and Yale University. It is a world-class chamber music group that has performed over 700 times in more than 120 cities worldwide over 30 years.
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