9 May 2024
Music was performed by Hyelim Kim (daegeum - Korean flute) and Yoon Joo Hwang (bassoon).
Bringing together traditional music and contemporary pieces by Korean composers, the concert gave the audience an insight into how Korean music, classical and vernacular, is written and performed today, on both Western and Korean instruments.
The following Monday, Dr Hwang gave a lecture to the department discussing her research on the development of the Western art music scene on the Korean peninsula following the national division and how Korean composers negotiated the competing ideological influences of the Cold War on the practice of their art form after 1945. Her presentation offered fascinating new insights in the political challenges of the period and how composers responded, often at great personal cost.