2025 Mapo Cultural Foundation Creative Art Song Festival
Original Art Songs and Beloved Classics to Be Performed
A Stage Blending Korean Sentiment with Western Harmony
Six New Works and Classic Favorites Await Audiences
Mapo Cultural Foundation announced on the 21st that it will hold the 2025 Mapo Cultural Foundation Creative Art Song Festival 'Poetry (Si), Composing Songs' at the Mapo Mart Center PlayMac on February 8.
A stage will be prepared where audiences can enjoy six original art songs produced by the foundation itself, along with beloved classic songs.
Korean art songs are a genre born by blending Western music harmony and melody with Korean emotions. Over more than 100 years, they have sung the unique sensibilities and zeitgeist of the Korean people, gaining much love. However, since the 1980s, the genre has experienced a decline and drifted away from the public. The foundation has been promoting various projects to re-examine the beauty of Korean art songs.
In 2022, the foundation produced and performed the relay concert series 'Korean Art Song: Concert of the Century,' which covers 100 years of Korean art songs, and the musical 'First Love,' based on Korean art songs. From 2023 to 2024, it planned the 'Modern Art Song' series, where indie bands rearranged and sang art songs themselves, holding concerts to communicate with the younger generation.
Additionally, since 2022, the foundation has held the pure Korean language creative poetry contest 'Hunminjeongeum Mangwoljang' annually, creating pure Korean language art songs with lyrics written by citizens, thus producing original art songs reflecting the current era. Over the past three years, a total of eight songs, entirely produced from poetry writing to composition, have been recorded with voices of vocalists active domestically and internationally, and official sound sources have been released on the foundation’s YouTube channel and music platforms at home and abroad.
At this Creative Art Song Festival, six of these songs?'Following the Anger' (music by Billy Acosti, poetry by Kim Damso), 'Hope' (music by Son Ilhun, poetry by Na Taeju), 'Fox Sunlight' (music by Lee Jeongbong, poetry by Baek Jiyoon), 'Day Moon' (music by Lee Jinwook, poetry by Bae Doori), 'Companion' (music by Lee Jinwook, poetry by Oh Doyeon), and 'Flowers Will Bloom There' (music by Lee Jeongbong, poetry by Byun Jimin)?can be enjoyed with sweet piano accompaniment and vocalists’ voices. In addition, classic Korean art songs that have been loved for a long time, such as 'I Will Live in the Green Mountains,' and representative modern art songs like 'Snow' and 'Meeting' will also be featured.
For more details about the Creative Art Song Festival 'Poetry, Composing Songs,' please visit the foundation’s official website.
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