“Bell Flower”
for piano solo
by

Sung Joo Hong  

2005 Korean-American Music Composition Competition
3 rd Prize Winner

About the Composer:

Sung Joo Hong is a BM degree candidate at the Manhattan School of Music. He studies music composition with Richard Danielpour. His music has been performed by Claremont Ensemble, Manhattan Composers’ Orchestra, Manhattan Chamber Ensemble, and Virtuoso Artists. Awards include the Pasadena Arts Council Award, the CMS Scholarship, and Claremont Prize.

About the Music:

“Bell Flower” (도라지꽂) for piano solo. This piano piece is based on a theme from a Korean folk tune “Bell Flower” or “Doraji”. The piece also includes rhythms from Korean “PungMul Nori”. This piece attempts a musical recollection to make Korean folk tune and rhythm materials into a piano music.

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“Chang-gu nori”
for piano solo
Based on Chil-che & Youk-che
(Korean Rhythmic Pattern)
by

Dae-Sung Kim

2005 Korean-American Music Composition Competition
Honorable Mention

About the Composer:

Dae-Sung Kim

Lecturer, Joong-Ang University, Seoul, Korea. Grand prize winner of the KBS Music Composition Competition, Grand prize winner of the Best Musical.

About the Music:

“Chang-gu nori” (장구노리) for piano solo. This music is based on Korean traditional “PungMul Nori” rhythm “Gil-gun-ak Chil-chae” and “Ma-dang Il-chae”. This piece is an interpretation of Korean traditional rhythm into a piano music. The melodies in the middle of this piece with slow tempo derived from a Korean folk tune (Ihm-sil-gun, Bang-ah ta-ryung) from IkSan region of the Chun Buk Province and consist of “pyung-jo melody”. The dynamic rhythm and beautiful melodies of Korean folk music were incorporated into this piano music.

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“Chaos” based on
"Sae Ta Ryung"
for piano solo
by

Eugene Cha

About the Composer:

Eugene Cha was born in Los Angeles, USA and grew up both in Korea and USA. So he knows a lot of both cultures. Currently he studies in Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and his major teacher is Dr. Chris Theofanidis. He also studied computer music with Dr. McGregor Boyle. Now, his main interest is combining music of different worlds and cultures.

About the Music:

“Chaos” based on SaeTaRyung (새타령). Like to goal of this competition, I composed a piece that fully incorporates Korean spirit and that has elements which interests the listeners of the younger generations. Korean spirit and cultural heritage is achieved by incorporating themes from traditional song “SaeTaRyung”. Among different versions of this song, Chun La Province’s SaeTaRyung but conveying the emotions of that of JukByukGa; on top of this idea, I added the element of “chaos” to lead the whole music so that the emotions go up to the highest level. There is no doubt that this dynamic and vigorous element of chaos will interest the younger generations. In my original composition, two main themes are used; bird’s chirping and the chorus part of the whole song. The piece opens up with introduction followed by introduction of the main themes. Starting from measure 17, these two themes are varied in different interesting ways (bird’s chirping development_>transition_>chorus part development… and so on). It is also interesting to note that the bass line of the development sections are comprised of 5 tone boundary. Another aspect to note is that frequent time signature change in the development section represents the state of chaos of the bird (that lives through the cold winter forest) which once was a general who fought and died in a war, like the story in JukByukGa. The real beauty of this piece is experimental and open-mindedness that fully captures the intended spirit.

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“Nil-Lili”
- revised in 2007 -
for solo piano
by

Jean Ahn

2005 Korean-American Music Composition Competition
1 st Prize Winner

About the Composer:

Jean Ahn is a PhD candidate in composition at the University of California at Berkeley. She was born in Korea and received her BA and MA from the Seoul National University in Korea.
Her music was played by Ensemble Surplus (2007 in Buffalo, NY), the Aspen New Music Ensemble, and the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, among others. Recent awards include the Eisner Prize for conducting, the Renee Fisher Award, a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival, the Korean National Music Composers Award, and the Pan Music Festival Award. Ms. Ahn also studied electronic/computer music with a focus on Asian traditional instruments. Her recent electronic pieces were played at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. - updated in 2007

Korea Times of Chicago 9/2/2005 news article.

About the Music:

“Nil-Lili” (닐리리) (2007 revision) for solo piano. Using the theme of the Korean tune “Nil-Ni-Lia”, this piece extends the song by juxtaposing chromatic scales or pentatonic clusters. The piece has the joyful lightness of the original tune, which is one of the most popular folk songs from the Kyunggi Province.

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“Blue Bird”
for piano solo
by

Hyun Kyung Kim

About the Composer:

Hyun Kyung Kim is on the Computer Music Faculty of the Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. She just obtained doctoral studies in computer music composition at the University of Maryland in May 2005. Previously she received a bachelor and masters in music composition from Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and pursued Music Technology studies at New York University. She has worked professionally in recording facilities and as an international sales consultant at Harman Consum er Group in New York.

About the Music:

“Blue Bird” (파랑새) is based on traditional Korean melody “Sae-ya Sae-ya Parang Sae-ya”. It is for a piano solo and composed in a variation format. It starts with four measures of introduction and each variation is about eight measures long and explores various styles, such as musette, nocturnal, canon, arpeggios, and waltz. “Blue Bird” consists a original melody of “Sae-ya Sae-ya Parang Sae-ya”.and each section has clear contour of the traditional melody. Thus the performer should bring the melody out clearly from the other accompaniments or inner harmony materials. Since each variation section has its own style, there are couple of abrupt tempo changes. However performer should either speed up or slow down few measures before the each section, so the flow of the music would not be interrupted and connected smoothly.

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“Song of Roasted Chestnut ”
for piano solo
by

Dong-il Sheen

About the Composer:

Dong-il Sheen was born in Seoul, Korea. He was described as “a quiet revolutionary who broke the barrier of classical music” (Culture and Me magazine 2006).

In a 2002 article in the New Music Composition and Critics journal, Professor Young-Han Heo of the Korean National University of Arts wrote, “Dong-il Sheen is a composer who filled the huge void in our lives with a new style of creative music. He explored music style that was ignored by other composers and now firmly established his own style.”

Mr. Sheen has been active in writing music in many different styles, including western European music, traditional Korean music, children’s music, film soundtracks, and musicals. He graduated Seoul National University and received his Master’s degree at the New York University Graduate School of Music. He worked as a reporter for the Cho-Sun Daily News in New York for a while before returning to Korea. Upon returning to Seoul, he collaborated with pianist Jung Hee Han in the album Blue Bicycle, which later received a critical acclaim. He started the new style music movement “Han-ma-dang” and “Music Composers-ma-dang.” In 2002, Mr. Sheen collaborated with writer-illustrator Jae-soo Liu in the CD-Book Yellow Umbrella, which was named as one of the 10 best illustrated books by the New York Times. His recent piano album World with Fun (2005) was republished by the Zen-On Music in Japan under the title World Full of Colors. Later, Japanese pianist Takako Takahashi made a CD of Mr. Sheen’s music in Japan.
He received numerous awards including the Best Young Artists of the Year award from the Korean Ministry of Culture & Tourism in 2003, and the Grand Prize of the Year in composers and conductors categories from the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) in 2004.

Mr. Sheen is a board member of the Association of Korean Musicians, President of the Composer’s Association (Jahk-gok-ma-dang), and Co-president of the Children’s Arts Production. Currently he is a lecturer at the Korean National University of Arts and Seoul National University Graduate School of Music.

About the Music:

“Song of Roasted Chestnut” is a folk song from Kyung-gi Province. This song contains a refrain, “Oh, roasted chestnut…”, but rest of the song describes the scenery of nature found in rural Korean life.

“Song of Roasted Chestnut” for piano solo starts off with the original folk song melody. Accompanying parts are 7th chords with variations, keeping the format similar to a rondo or paraphrase.

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“Toad”
for violin and piano
by

Jeong Kyu Park

2005 Korean-American Music Composition Competition
1 st Prize Winner  

About the Composer:

Jeong Kyu Park attends the Korean National University of Arts graduate school, where he has received a BM in music composition. He has studied with Sung-Ho Whang, Feliciano, and Byung-Eun Yoo. Mr. Park was the first prize winner of the 2003 Dong-A Music Competition, 2004 Tong-Young International Music Festival, 2004 Korean Chorus Music Festival, 2004 Seoul City Chorus Music Competition, and 2004 Dae-Jun City Chorus Music Competition.

Korea Times of Chicago 9/9/2005 news article

About the Music:

 “Toad” (두껍이) for violin solo. A piece of eight variations, it is based on a theme derived from a Korean traditional children’s song “Du-Gup-Ah, Du-Gup-Ah” (Toad, Toad). It starts with a slow tempo, gradually accelerating to finish with a strong and stormy ending.

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“Sopum”
for violin solo
based on the theme of Sangyoungsan
by

Keumok Huh

The piece was composed for the 1st Annual Sejong Music Competition
to be used as a Required piece.

About the Composer:

Keumok Heo has earned advanced music degrees from several
universities, including a master’s degree in composition from Northwestern University. She also studied at Robert Schumann Musikhochschule, Duesseldorf, Germany where she received a Diplom (the equivalent of a masters degree) in composition and a minor in piano. Additionally, she graduated from Yon Sei University with a bachelor’s degree in composition and a minor in piano.

Her compositions have been performed in Germany, Asia and the United States and have been featured in several international music festivals. Her work has been published in written scores and on CD.

About the Music:

Sopum for Violin solo (소품) was composed in 2004, especially for the First Sejong Music Competition. The theme is based on the Korean folk song, Sangyoungsan.

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“Ong-He-Ya”
for violin solo
based on the theme of Sangyoungsan
by

Hyo-young Ahn

About the Composer:

Hyo-young Ahn is a graduate student in music composition at the Korean National University of Arts. She won numerous competitions including Chorus Center competition. She is one of the Composer in Residence for the Korea Brass Choir. Recently her music was commissioned and performed by JeJu Wind Orchestra (Fantasy on Folksong of Jeju) and HanYang University Wind Orchestra (Korea Rhapsody).

About the Music:

Ong-He-Ya is a popular folk tune from the Kyung Sang Province. Farmers sang this song during their barley harvest while thrashing and milling barley. This tune is usually sung by two groups, with both groups singing phrases in response to one another in a synchronized rhythm while thrashing barley.

Ong-He-Ya for violin and piano was written as violin and piano alternating phrases as the singers used to do. The middle section of this music used a melody from the Korean folk song “Sae-Ya, Sae-Ya” (see text of this song below). The last section repeats to melodies from Ong-He-Ya.

Sae-Ya, Sae-Ya (Birds, birds)
Birds, birds, blue birds, do not disturb the green-bean* fields.
The farmers will cry if the flowers are dropped and lost.

Birds, birds, blue birds, sitting on our green-bean fields.
If the green-bean flowers dropped, the farmers will be angry and thrash you.

Birds, birds, blue birds, sitting on our green-bean fields.
We see our fathers’ and mothers’ ghosts above those fields.

Birds, birds, blue birds, why did you fly in now?
Why did you fly in this spring when the pines and bamboos are only barely green?

*The Korean general Bong-Joon Juhn lead an unsuccessful uprising against corrupt rulers in the late 19th century. His nickname was the Green Bean General. Koreans sang this song to mourn the general’s death and lament failed coup detat.

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“Yang-San-Do”
for violin solo
based on the theme of Sangyoungsan
by

Dong-il Sheen

About the Composer:  

Dong-il Sheen was born in Seoul, Korea. He was described as “a quiet revolutionary who broke the barrier of classical music” (Culture and Me magazine 2006).

In a 2002 article in the New Music Composition and Critics journal, Professor Young-Han Heo of the Korean National University of Arts wrote, “Dong-il Sheen is a composer who filled the huge void in our lives with a new style of creative music. He explored music style that was ignored by other composers and now firmly established his own style.”

Mr. Sheen has been active in writing music in many different styles, including western European music, traditional Korean music, children’s music, film soundtracks, and musicals. He graduated Seoul National University and received his Master’s degree at the New York University Graduate School of Music. He worked as a reporter for the Cho-Sun Daily News in New York for a while before returning to Korea. Upon returning to Seoul, he collaborated with pianist Jung Hee Han in the album Blue Bicycle, which later received a critical acclaim. He started the new style music movement “Han-ma-dang” and “Music Composers-ma-dang.” In 2002, Mr. Sheen collaborated with writer-illustrator Jae-soo Liu in the CD-Book Yellow Umbrella, which was named as one of the 10 best illustrated books by the New York Times. His recent piano album World with Fun (2005) was republished by the Zen-On Music in Japan under the title World Full of Colors. Later, Japanese pianist Takako Takahashi made a CD of Mr. Sheen’s music in Japan.
He received numerous awards including the Best Young Artists of the Year award from the Korean Ministry of Culture & Tourism in 2003, and the Grand Prize of the Year in composers and conductors categories from the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) in 2004.

Mr. Sheen is a board member of the Association of Korean Musicians, President of the Composer’s Association (Jahk-gok-ma-dang), and Co-president of the Children’s Arts Production. Currently he is a lecturer at the Korean National University of Arts and Seoul National University Graduate School of Music.

About the Music:

Yang-San-Do for violin and piano – “Yang-San-Do” is a folk song from the Kyunggi Province. It originated during the late Chosun dynasty, sung by construction workers during the renovation of the Kyung Bok Palace in Seoul. Later on this tune was developed into a Sun Sori (folk song), sung with many variations of the verses. The rhythm of the song is in three beats.

The main melody of this piece is played by violin while the piano plays only the accompaniment. This music begins with the unmodified Yang-San-Do tune to introduce the audience to the original folk tune. Then the violin melody expands to a new level as it explores the melodic variations of the theme while keeping the general, upbeat feeling of the Yang-San-Do tune.

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“Dorajie”
for violin and piano
by

Rhee Haun

About the Composer:

Rhee Haun was born in Seoul, Korea. Resident of Wichita, Kansas. She studied music at the Seoul Art High School in Korea and music composition at Wichita State University. Earlier works have been registered with the US Library of Congress.

About the Music:

Dorajie (도라지) is the Korean name of the Bellflower. The root of the flower is used to make a side vegetable dish. Korean ladies like to pick the roots, so they can make Dorajie namul. It is a well known Korean folk song, and I composed for violin with piano accompaniment. Use of the major and the minor key gives the light and shade, but never too shaded. It remains fresh and pure as a young lady. Use of three beats, one of Korean’s common folk rhythms creates the dancing movements.

About the Composer:

Dong-Ji Moon ’s musical education was greatly influenced by his mother who is a pianist and teacher. He came to America in 1997. He participated in the Montgomery County Honors String Orchestra and has been awarded by The Old York Road Symphony. He is currently studying composition with Dr. Brodhead at Temple University .

About the Music:

“ Hae - ga San M a - loo - eh Ju- mool - uh - do ” (해가 산마루에 저물어도) based on a poem by So Wol Kim: Melodically, this piece mostly uses a minor-pentatonic scale that is based on key signature. Every pitch in this scale is exactly matched with her feelings, so it could express her pains so well. It modulates five times by major-pentatonic scale (f-g-B flat-c-d) instead of minor-pentatonic which represents the composer’s hope for happy ending. Mostly, the pitch is based atonal harmony, but it also uses quintal harmony.

About the Poem

When the Sun comes to an end over the ridge of a mountain
To me, it comes to an end by the reason of you.

When the Sun rises over the ridge of a mountain
To me, the bright morning breaks by the reason of you.

When the ground caves in under my feet or when the sky falls down on my head
To me, all these happen by the reason of you.

Once again, when the time comes,
My never ending love to you will follow you like your shadow.

Oh, my beloved, my dear heart.

해가 산마루에 저물어도

  해가 산마루에 저물어도
  내게 두고는 당신 때문에 저뭅니다.

  해가 산마루에 올라와도
  내게 두고는 당신 때문에 밝은 아침이라고 할 것입니다.

  땅이 꺼져도 하늘이 무너져도
  내게 두고는 끝까지 모두다 당신 때문에 있습니다.

  다시는, 나의 이러한 맘뿐은, 때가 되면,
  그림자 같이 당신한테로 가오리다.

  오오, 나의 애인이었던 당신이여.

김소월(金素月)

So-Wol Kim (1902-34) is one of Korea ’s most famous poets. His most significant achievement was the flexibility and versatility he achieved in the use of the Korean language. In this poem, he presented the sorrow of a woman who was left by her husband. Here, he indicated the East Asian culture of woman that always had been on lower position than man. Basically this poem is all about her grief and yearning for her husband.

About the Composer:

Soonmee Kahng is a professor at College of Music, the Sungshin Women’s University at Seoul, Korea. She received her BM at the Ewha Women’s University, MM at the Manhattan School of Music, and PhD at the Michigan State University.

She composed “Arirang Fantasy for Violin solo” for the 2004 Sejong Music Competition to be used as a required piece.

About the Music:

“ Dal ah dal ah” (달아 달아)

“Petite Suite ” for Cello Solo: Korean folk tune "Dal ah, dal ah" is used in this music. ("Dal ah" means a calling the moon: Dal: the moon)

A beautiful ring around the moon is described by employing slow tempo and double stops with the tune in the first movement.

In the second movement, the Ut-mori jang-dan is used with the fragments of the tune. (Ut-mori jang-dan which is one of typical Korean rhythmic patterns. The formation of the rhythmic figure is a consistent 10 beats. The player strikes the rim of a drum or changgu at the accented eighth beat regularly in this rhythmic pattern.)

Eastern modes and rhythmic patterns are used to represent the yearning for the moonlight voyage somewhat abstractly in the third movement. In the fourth movement the tune, "Dal ah, dal ah" is repeated with its melodic rhythmic variations.

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About the Composer:

Charles Lee
Born in 1981 at Riverside , CA , Charles Lee moved to Suwon , South Korea at the age 4. He began studying composition and piano around the age 14 and attended Seoul Arts High School as a composition major. In 1997, he returned to the US and began his formal instruction with Pablo Ortz and Andrew Frank, professors of composition at the University of California at Davis . Charles Lee attended the University of Southern California (USC) as an undergraduate composition major graduating with the Department Award and Cum Laude, and recently completed the Masters of Arts degree at the University of California , Los Angeles (UCLA). Lee studied with notable professors including Stephen Hartke, Donald Crockett, Frank Ticheli, Roger Bourland, and Paul Chihara. His compositions have been performed in Davis , Los Angeles , Sacramento , Seoul , and Suwon . Currenly, Lee is working in both music and real estate development. Lee plans to concentrate primarily on writing commercial music.

About the Music:

Taken Away at Twelve

After reading a true story based on an Korean comfort woman, Yi Okpun, and her terrible experiences during World War II, I was shocked yet inspired to write a piece for this woman. The author was one of many comfort women who were forced to become sexual slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army. I intended to write a piece that has both angry and sad sounds, as if these sounds symbolize a comfort woman’s deep sufferings and times they have gone through.

The first and second section of the piece is called “Taken…” and “…to a comfort station”. In order to raise the war effort, Japanese war minister deceived and kidnapped hundreds of young Korean girls. This twelve-year old girl was enslaved, beaten, and starved. Later, the girl was sent to a comfort station in Taiwan and forced to become a sexual slave. Her job was to comfort 20-30 men in a day. Oppressed by too many hungry soldiers, her body was almost half-dead, beaten, and starved.

This piece that I submitted to the Sejong Society is the third section, named “Return”. After World War II was over, the girl could finally return to her homeland trying to forget the tragedy that had happened to her. She sings “Saeya Saeya” on the boat to Korean. I quoted this traditional Korean folksong throughout the section. I decided to quote this folksong, since the melody is well known among Koreans and beautiful despite using only four notes. The folksong also sets a perfectly nostalgic scene for a lonely girl on the boat singing and crying alone. She yearns for mother, home, and peace. When she arrived in Korea at the age of twenty-one, she would conceal every truth for a half century. Her agony would never be forgotten but remain forever in her life. I hope to dedicate this piece to the innocent Korean comfort women.

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About the Composer:

Rob Collins has held composer/performer positions in ensembles performing in various genres: Rock (Brother Meat - Bass); Trip-Hop (Makka Sleuth - Bass); Progressive Metal (Syzygy - Guitar/Vocals); Jazz (Chairman Mouse - Piano); Modern Chamber Music ( BCF Trio - Percussion/Piano/Electronics) as well as various Gamelan Groups.

Currently, he resides in New York and is the pianist for the new music ensemble  "Slow Six." Rob also spent eight years as an accompanist and composer for the Cornell University Dance Program.

His interests in Computer Science led him to work as a consultant in Cornell's Computer Science Department and study Algorithmic Composition with David Cope and Paul Nauert. Degrees include a BA (Performance & Music Ed) from Ithaca College; an MA (Composition) from UC Santa Cruz and current work on a PhD (Composition) at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Grants for overseas musical research have taken him to Indonesia and the Republic of Korea.

About the Music:

Jindo Arirang

Jindo Arrrirang for cello & piano: The melody of Jindo Arirang served as the melodic material around which harmonic and rhythmic materials were arranged.

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About the Composer:

Geon-yong Lee started to compose since age twelve. He played oboe in school band in Seoul Middle School. He studied composition with Dal-Sung Kim at Seoul High School of Music and Arts and with Sung-Jae Lee at Seoul National University. In 1976 he went to Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and studied composition with Heinz Werner Zimmermann at Frankfurter Musik-hochschule.

After returning to Korean he taught composition in Hyo-sung Woman’s University and Seoul National University. He moved to the Korean National University of Arts in 1993 and was named the president of the university in 2002.

Lee is one of the most serious composers of our time in Korea. It is his dream to share the story of lives through music. He doesn’t want to be alienated from his own music by burying himself in contemporary trends, and he does not want to be distanced by others. After returning from Germany he challenged the modernism which dominated Korean musical environment in early 1980s. 

He founded composer’s group called The Third Generation. Since then he has devoted his effort in creating music that represents the unique identity of the third worlds and Korea. In early 1980s he produced mostly chamber works which include his experiments with Korean traditional styles and forms, such as Phrygian Sanjo, Cello Sanjo, Syrum-norum, and He-yoo-Gok. During late 1980s, while the political and social conditions of the country changed for the worst, he composed many vocal pieces with strong messages including Song of Yellow Jesus and Psalms of Wrath.

Since early 1990s he has been focusing on the words like ‘touching’ and ‘moving’, and beauty of lyricism. His interest narrowed down to the localized beauty rather than the universal. All of his works performed today fall under the category of this inception.

About the Music:

Ong (옹)

“Ong" is a free variation based on a folk song, "Ong-He-Ya (옹 혜야) ", from Kyung-Sang Province. The interval between "Ong" and "He-Ya" is usually transcribed in perfect fourth or major third. But the composer widened it into perfect fifth and made the lower note of the fifth a sort of fundamental. Then the structural intervals of "Ong" are (from the fundamental) perfect fifth, minor seventh, octave, major ninth, major tenth, augmented 11th and perfect 12th, very similar with natural harmonic series. The composer translated the original song in this melodic material in free manner.

"Ong-He-Ya" was sung in the barley threshing. Because the work is very hard and the movement of threshing is rather fast and mechanically repeating the mood of the folk song is energetic and metric. This mood is still remain in "Ong", though the style of "call and response" of the original song is disregarded because it is a solo piece for cello. 

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