Place:National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
The National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan (NCO) is cooperating with the National Orchestra of Korea (NOK) on an upcoming concert entitled "Hallyu in Taiwan,” which will be produced by Huang Cheng-ming, the artistic director of the Taipei-based Chai Found Music Workshop.
A key feature of the concert, which is named after the so-called Korean Wave "Hallyu,” is that the conductors from each orchestra will show how the two represented cultures interpret music. Korean conductor and NOK Artistic Director Won Il will conduct the first half of the program.
Won is known as a reformer of traditional Korean music because of his refusal to conform to traditional notions of the orchestra. He rose to fame after winning several Grand Bell Awards, the top film award in South Korea.
Won will conduct two pieces adapted from traditional Korean music - "Four Natures” and "Green Mountains.” The first work is performed using four traditional Korean percussion instruments symbolizing the deities of clouds, rain, wind and thunder. Won will also interpret the late Taiwanese composer Cheng Si-sem's work "Pine” from a Korean perspective, as well as performing an original piece he has composed especially for the NCO.
Taiwanese conductor Ku Pao-wen will conduct the remaining half of the program. Ku, an associate professor at the Tainan National University of the Arts, became the resident conductor of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra in August 2012. He will cooperate with Yang-sook Moon, the NOK's concertmaster for the gayageum, a traditional zither-like Korean string instrument.
Moon first learned the instrument in Japan when she was a child. In the 1990s, she went to Pyongyang to study a variant of the gayageum, and then returned to South Korea to learn to play the traditional 12-string gayageum.
The concert also includes a concerto inspired by "Honbul,” or 'Fire of the Soul,' an epic novel written by renowned Korean author Choi Myeong-hee.
The concert is scheduled to take place at 7:30 P.M. on Aug. 16 at the National Concert Hall in Taipei. As an antiphon to the NOK's selection of traditional melodies, the NCO will perform Taiwanese Hoklo-Hakka folk songs as elements of the program.