Sejong Music Competition Winners Concert Performance- required piece
"Ong" (옹) by Geon-yong Lee
Hyunjin Jessica Cho, cello
(Cello Senior Division 2nd Place, 1/13/2008)
Ganz Hall, Chicago Jan 13, 2008
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.
Hyunjin Jessica Cho, 17, a senior at Glenbrook South High School, started playing the cello at the age of eleven with David Cunliffe at the Music Institute of Chicago. She has played the violin for four years with Betty Haag, and was involved with the Magical Strings of Youth where she traveled to Australia, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, China and all over the US. She journeyed to Beijing as one of the guests of the Chinese government and the Motorola Corp. She is currently a member of the MIC Academy Program. She is a member of the Glenbrook Symphony Orchestra, where she is the principal cellist, and American Chambers Strings. With the American Chamber Strings, she traveled to Italy in the spring of 2006. She has performed with the En Gedi Ensemble twice as a soloist. Jessica has had masterclasses with renowned musicians such as Julliard violinist Tai Murray, Avalon String Quartet, the Pacifica Quartet, Soo Bae, teacher Richard Aaron, Amit Peled and much more. Recently Jessica has been asked to perform in front of violinist Midori at the MIC’s 75th anniversary. In the spring of 2006, Jessica also performed in the Young Steinway Concert Series. Her awards include first places in the Junior and Senior divisions at the Confucius Chinese Fine Arts Competition, concerto winner at the Glenbrook Concerto Competition 2005 and 2007, and her most recent: first place in the 2006 SAM Senior Division, first place in the 2006 Music Chorale Competition, Most Outstanding Player in the Senior Division 2006 Music at Trinity Competition, third place in the Sejong Music Competition 2007 and second place in 2008.