Chaos based on Sae-Ta-Ryung by Eugene Cha
(새 타령)
Paul Juhn, piano
(Piano Senior division 2nd Place, 2006)
video length - 1 min 41 sec
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.
Paul Juhn, age 15, attends Vernon Hills High School. He began playing the piano when he was four years old. He currently studies piano with Emilio del Rosario and cello with Blake Brasch at the Music Institute of Chicago. His former piano teacher was Dr. Soo Lee at the Music Institute of Chicago. He won prizes at many competitions including CAMTA, the North Shore Music Teachers Association, the Illinois Music Teacher’s Association, and the Granquist Music competition. He has placed first in the Primary, Junior, Intermediate, and Senior division of the Society of American Music competition and was the alternate in the MTNA Junior competition in 2004. In 1998, he was the youngest winner in the piano division of the Midwest Young Artists Concerto competition and an overall win at the 2003 Walgreens Concerto competition. Also, Paul has won first place in Sejong Music competition in 2005 and finalist in the CSO Auditions. He has given many public performances, including the Young Steinway Series at the Skokie Public Library. As one of the winners in the Steinway Society’s “Chicago’s Most Promising Student Pianist” competition, he performed on WNIB radio. Just recently, he has given a concert at the Gala Celebration for the Music Institute of Chicago. Finally, in this past August, Paul performed in the “East meets west”, Music with Korean themes.Copyright © 2007 Sejong Cultural Society