I had a fabulous evening tonight. I went to the Sejong Center for Performing Arts to watch a performance featuring one of Korea's foremost tradional dancer, Dance-Master Park Kyung-Rang. We were not allowed to take any video during the performance, so I'll just embed other representative videos that I could find online below.
However, the evening turned from great to fantastic as other maestro's of Traditional Korean Music also joined the stage.
Lee Saeng-Kang evoked the deepest Korean nostalgia with his bamboo flute performance.
I was especially impressed with how he used the reed whistle to play a well known Western song, yet in line with the Oriental spirit of the instrument. In the video below, the song "Danny Boy" is performed.
Undoubtedly one of my favourite artists of the evening was gayageum master, Baek In-Young. The gayageum sounds truly crawl under your skin and make itself home in your soul. It is at once uncomfortable and nurturing.
One of his performances include a type of jazz jam that included a guitar, western drum set, and other instruments in the ensemble. It had me nearly jumping out of my chair of pure agitated joy. The video below features a different ensemble-set, but the idea is quite similar: a mixture of traditional Korean instruments with modern (Western) instruments.
2 comments:
Kan dink dat jy dit geniet het. Aanvanklik het ek niks van die gayageum gehou nie, maar soos jy se, dit groei op mens. There is something haunting about the sound of the gayageum.
Ja, soms klink dit na 'n kat se gekerm, maar as dit reg en met vaardigheid gespeel word dink ek dit die klaagliedinstrument--selfs meer nog as die cello.
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