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

Ong-He-Ya is a popular folk tune from the Kyung Sang Province. Farmers sang this song during their barley harvest while threshing 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 threshing 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 세야세야
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, nicknamed the Green Bean General, lead an unsuccessful uprising against corrupt rulers in the late 19th century. Koreans sang this song to mourn the general’s death and lament failed coup d’état.