Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra(서울 시립 교향악단), founded in 1945, is one of the oldest and most famous orchestra in South Korea. Its first foreign tour came on a 1965 trip to Japan, followed by performances in Southeast Asia in 1977, the United States in 1982, 1986 and 1996, a 1988 tour of Europe before the Seoul Olympics that year, and a 1997 performance in Beijing. The Philharmonic is an incorporated foundation since 2005.Its current music director is Myung-Whun Chung.

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO), which was founded in January 1948, has a longer history than any other Korean orchestra. In February of 1948, the orchestra held its opening concert, conducted by Maestro Seong-Tae Kim. In October of the same year, the Seoul Philharmonic Society was formed to provide support for the orchestra. The society published the music monthly Philharmony in the following year. After a subscription concert in the Seoul Civic Hall on June 25, 1950, the orchestra had to suspend its activities due to the outbreak of the Korean War, but resumed performance with the name of the Naval Symphony Orchestra, just five months later, to soothe the broken hearts of Koreans during the war.

In August 1957, the Seoul Metropolitan Council passed "The Seoul Metropolitan Ordinances to Install a City-Run Orchestra", the Naval Symphony Orchestra was disintegrated in a constructive manner to become the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the first Korean orchestra funded by a government. The launching ceremony for the orchestra with triple winds took place in the city council’s chamber. The number of members was 82 while Maestro Saeng-Ryo Kim was appointed its first Chief Conductor. Since then, the SPO has helped the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky take root as basic repertoire in the Korean music community. The orchestra also focused on nurturing young musicians by holding Concerts with Korean Youth Musicians where promising children and adolescent musicians who passed the orchestra’s rigorous auditions were given the opportunity to perform with the orchestra.

It was through these concerts that such names as Kyung-Sook Lee, Kun-Woo Paik, Kyung-Wha Chung, Dong-Suk Kang and Myung-Whun Chung, who have finally become maestros to represent the Korean music community, were able to blossom.

With the aim of growing to a world-class orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra was re-launched as an incorporated foundation on June 1, 2005 and welcomed the world-renowned maestro Myung-Whun Chung as its Music Director (he had been Artistic Advisor in 2005). The orchestra has since made stellar development. As a result of its reorganization, full-scale auditions were performed, which resulted in the replacement of 40 percent of the members. Rigorous evaluations are carried out annually to advance its members’ performance.

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra performed the nine symphonies of Beethoven through only four concerts under the direction of the Artistic Director in 2006, paving the way for the further development of the orchestra. Maestro Chung has been leading the orchestra’s performance of all of the symphonies and concertos of Brahms in 2007. Top class musicians from home and abroad have been participating in the 2007 Brahms Special by the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra: the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos for Brahms’s Violin Concerto; violinist Soo-Vin Kim and cellist Jian Wang for the Double Concerto for violin and cello; pianist Sun-Wook Kim for the Piano Concerto No. 1; pianist Nelson Freire for the Piano Concerto No. 2; and bass Samuel Youn for A German Requiem.

Focus is also placed on interaction with modern music: the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra adopted the composer-in-residence system for the first time in Korea when it was re-launched as an incorporated foundation, and welcomed the brilliant mind of Unsuk Chin as its first Composer-in-Residence. Maestra Chin, honored by the Grawemeyer Award, dubbed the Nobel Prizes for musicians, in 2004, and awarded the Arnold Schoenberg Prize in 2005, is a world-renowned Korean composer, following Eak-Tai Ahn and Isang Yun.

Composer-in-Residence Unsuk Chin has planned a series of modern music titled Ars Nova since 2006 to introduce Korean music lovers to masterpieces of modern music that are being played on stages around the world. Featured in the first performance of Ars Nova in 2005 were pieces by Bach and Schubert, arranged by Anton Webern and La Mer by Claude Debussy, who opened the respective doors to modern and impressionist music, and Chin’s Violin Concerto, for which she was named an awardee of the Grawemeyer Award, to provide glimpses of a variety aspects of modern music. The second concert of Ars Nova was titled Early & New and focused on arrangements of Baroque music and pieces composed under the inspiration from Baroque music. The third concert was titled The Different Beethoven, in alignment with the Beethoven Symphony Cycle, which was at the heart of the orchestra’s performances in 2006, to feature works by modern composers who had been influenced by Beethoven. Moreover, at the core of the 2007 performance was the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who had passed away in 2006. Pieces by Conlon Nancarrow and Chris Paul Harman, who are influenced by Ligeti, were also performed.

In order to faithfully proceed with those activities, the Composer-in-Residence prepares a preconcert lecture ahead of every concert to help the audience better understand modern music. Also provided is a program booklet that contains quality descriptions of the pieces to be featured, written by Dr. Habakuk Traber, who presents preconcert lectures for the audiences of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. In addition, open lectures are held to make the public better acquainted with the major issues and pieces in modern music around the world, while classes are run to select excellent music students to give them guidance in composing.

Since 2006, efforts have been made to synchronize together with the world’s classical music community, one step being the invitation of Michael Fine to serve as Senior Advisor Artistic Planning. Mr. Fine has been assisting with programming pieces for major concerts like subscription concerts as well as managing relations with outside conductors and musicians.

Since the re-launch as an incorporated foundation, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra has been performing with such world-class conductors as Arild Remmereit, Bundit Ungragsee, Stefan Asbury, Pinchas Zukerman, Rossen Milanov, Rudiger Bohn, Pascal Rophe, Xian Zhang, Mikko Franck, Andrey Boreyko, Charles Dutoit, James Judd, and Francois-Xavier Roth, as well as such distinguished musicians as Viviane Hagner (Vn), Alexander Melnikov (Pf), Ilya Gringolts (Vn), Li Wei (Vc) Nicholas Angelich (Pf), Hakan Hardenberger (Tp) Hae-Sun Kang (Vn), Xuefei Yang (Gt), Gary Graffman (Pf), Colin Currie (Per.), Alexei Lubimov (Pf), Martin Frost (Cl), and Richard Yongjae O'Neil (Va).

The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, which has grown in the love of the Seoul citizenry for over 60 years since its first foundation in 1948, has been performing over 100 concerts a year since its re-launch as an incorporated foundation in 2005 and thus making a dynamic leap forward to become a world-class orchestra to represent Korea abroad.

External links

*ko icon [http://www.seoulphil.co.kr/ Homepage]
* [http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060113/510100000020060113121336E2.html "Seoul Philharmonic aiming to become world-class orchestra"] , Yonhap News, January 13, 2006.
* [http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200503/kt2005033121554453460.htm "Seoul Philharmonic Protests With Music"] , The Korea Times, March 31, 2005.