Tongyeong International Music Festival
Tongyeong International Music Festival, abbreviated TIMF, is an annual music festival held in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. Considering the classification between ethnic and artistic categories, TIMF may be classified into one of Korea's leading arts and music festivals which is specialized in western music, i.e. with a variety of style and genre, such as contemporary, early(baroque), classical, romantic, traditional, symphonic, chamber or ensemble, operatic or music theater. In spite of its various appetite for genre, TIMF is usually known as being strong in contemporary program of western style music. The artistic director is the composer Unsuk Chin.
History
The origin of this festival results from the spirit to commemorate Isang Yun, a world-renowned composer who was born in Sancheong near Tongyeong and lived the latter part of life in Berlin, Germany. Yun settled down in Tongyeong and took the first job of teaching at high schools. At 39, Yun moved to Europe to study at Berlin University of the Arts, Germany. As a full-time professor, he educated many young artists whether they are composers or players, and many of his disciples were Koreans or from Korea.Isang Yun's Korean disciples were the ones that led TIMF project to be feasible. They first sought for sponsorship from the municipal government in order to present an introductory concert titled as 'Night of Isang Yun's Music'. This singular concert was held in 1999 and found itself to be successful thanks to hails of so many Korean artists.
The disciples were encouraged by this success, and they tried to develop it into Tongyeong Contemporary Music Festival. This festival is now recognized as an archetype of TIMF's current format, and on its threshold, it was a reformatory challenge to extend a singular concert to a form of a three-days festival.
This festival is very similar to 'the present' TIMF in the following features.
a. It was organized in a perfect form of a festival, as being held for three consecutive days.
b. Each different concert presented each different content in program, style and instrumentation.
c. Consistency was met in content programming, as the festival set its own theme.
2 years of experiments in the form of festival made it clear that the content of western music could be cooperatively coexistent with Tongyeong's environments. The opinions arose among the populace that the festival should be developed into an international format.
But the initiators did not make haste. Their next step was to establish an independent entity of a foundation. This action was necessary because the activity of hosting a festival should be politically neutral and cannot be disturbed by politicians or governments. The initiators formed the Board of Directors being helped by the provincial and the municipal governments, and the Board determined the initiative proposals to constitute a foundation and elect Seong-Yawng Park as the first Chairman of TIMF Foundation. The Foundation was established and registered in February 2002.
TIMF 2002, the first edition of a new 'international' format, was presented by this new legal entity through organizational forces caused by the Board, the Managing Committee and the Administration Office. Based upon the past 2 years' experiences, the programmers of the Secretariat constituted Tongyeong International Music Festival 2002, for 8 consecutive days in March.
The programmers kept deciding a new theme for each year. The theme was always derived from a subtitle of Isang Yun's works. Although there always arose a need to construct a new concert hall, Tongyeong Arts Center with Main Hall and Small Hall, was always the official venue. The following is the prospectus of Tongyeong International Music Festival since its first edition up to now.
Programs
The uniqueness in contemporary programming results from its spiritual motto that encourages programmers to commemorate and inherit creative minds of Isang Yun, a Korean composer born in Tongyeong. As Isang Yun was helped and discovered by European sponsors when in the past he endeavored to research abroad, TIMF finds it as an organizational mission to discover many other young composers who may succeed to Isang Yun's legacy. From this reason, TIMF's programmers do make it usual commission new works to young composers with brilliant creativity.Since Asia is still regarded upon as the periphery of music society, TIMF's discoveries are mainly focused on Asian composers. The following is the selected list of Asian composers whom TIMF has proudly found over the last decade by setting their own repertoire on stage.
Toru Takemitsu
Sukhi Kang
Chung-Gil Kim
Byung-dong Paik
Younghi Pagh-Paan
Qigang Chen
Qu Xiao-Song
Ih Kangyul
Toshio Hosokawa
Tan Dun
June Hee Lim
Unsuk Chin
Uzong Choe
Nam-kuk Kim
Sungji Hong
Let alone Asian composers, TIMF has also presented many outstanding contemporary works written by 20th century's composers. If the concept 'contemporary' may be defined as a reformative attempt towards new forms, a variety of works and composers can be introduced. TIMF has set up its own programming policy to honor contemporary era by finding the beauty of the works and introducing it to new and young audiences. The following is the result of the efforts made to do the finding.
Leoš Janáček
Edward Elgar
Isaac Albéniz
Gustav Mahler
Claude Debussy
Richard Strauss
Alexander Scriabin
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Arnold Schoenberg
Charles Ives
Maurice Ravel
Manuel de Falla
Béla Bartók
Karol Szymanowski
Zoltán Kodály
Anton Webern
Edgard Varèse
Alban Berg
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Bohuslav Martinu
Sergei Prokofiev
Darius Milhaud
Paul Hindemith
Francis Poulenc
Luigi Dallapiccola
Andre Jolivet
Giacinto Scelsi
Dmitri Shostakovich
Olivier Messiaen
Elliott Carter
Samuel Barber
John Cage
Benjamin Britten
Witold Lutosławski
Alberto Ginastera
Henri Dutilleux
Ástor Piazzolla
Iannis Xenakis
György Ligeti
Luigi Nono
Luciano Berio
Pierre Boulez
György Kurtág
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Mauricio Kagel
Sofia Gubaidulina
Krzysztof Penderecki
Alfred Schnittke
Arvo Pärt
Steve Reich
Heinz Holliger
Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
Salvatore Sciarrino
Wolfgang Rihm
Artists
As well as composers, TIMF has also presented outstanding musicians and performers. Its programming policy is concentratively set on presenting 2 categories of classical musicians; famed top stars or gifted top rookies. For this reason, TIMF's concert model is structured in a symmetrical compatibility between experimental performances to introduce young players and big-scale projects run by globally recognized orchestras, chamber ensembles, soloists or operatic productions. The following shows the artists staged in TIMF's history complying with these 2 categories.Young players introduced
Bartosz Koziak, CelloYunji Kang, Viola
Asian Festival Ensemble
KNUA String Ensemble with Solenne Paidassi, Violin
Narek Hakhnazaryan, Cello
Parker String Quartet
Sangah Nah, Flute
Ye-Eun Choi, Violin
Jun Mo Yang, Baritone
Julie Albers, Cello
Erin Keefe, Violin and So-Mang Jeagal, Piano
Young-Ah Tak, Piano
Jane Yoon, Harp
David DQ Lee, Countertenor
Bo-Kyoung Lee, Violin
Norie Takahashi, Piano
Sun-Wook Kim, Piano
Lin Yue, Violin
Kayagum Ensemble SAGYE
Boris Andrianov, Cello and Dimitri Illarionov, Guitar
Na-Young Baek, Cello
Matt Haimovitz, Cello
Globally recognized performing artists
Northern Sinfonia with Thomas Zehetmair, Conducting & ViolinRoby Lakatos, Gypsy Violin
Munich Chamber Orchestra with Alexander Liebreich, Conducting
Yeol-Eum Son, Piano
London Chamber Orchestra with Han-na Chang, Cello
Europa Galante with Fabio Biondi, Violin
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
John Holloway, Violin
HaeSun Paik, Piano
Jacques Loussier, Jazz Piano
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra with Gianandrea Noseda, Conducting
Hilary Hahn, Violin
English Chamber Orchestra with Ralf Gothóni, Conducting
Jordi Savall, Viola da gamba
Kazuhito Yamashita, Guitar
Claude Bolling, Jazz Piano
Dong-Min Lim, Piano
Kronos Quartet with Wu Man, Pipa
St.Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra with Yuri Temirkanov, Conducting
Vladimir Feltsman, Piano
Richard Yongjae O'Neill, Viola
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra with Yuri Simonov, Conducting
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with Peter von Wienhardt, Piano
Arditti Quartet
Dong-Suk Kang, Violin
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Conducting with Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists
Chung Trio
Mischa Maisky, Cello
Tan Dun, Conducting
Silesian String Quartet
The State Symphony Capella of Russia with Valeri Polyansky, Conducting
Rachel Lee, Violin
Natalie Clein, Cello
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta, Conducting
Sarah Chang, Violin
Sejong Soloists with Cho-Liang Lin, Violin
Heinz Holliger, Conducting & Oboe
Myung-whun Chung, Conducting with Philharmonique Orchestra de Radio France
Dong-Hyek Lim, Piano
Xenakis Ensemble
Vision: artistic director
On the verge of opening TIMF 2009, the Festival embraced a revolutionary brand-new phase of its history. TIMF Foundation, the managing body of the Festival and other related business branches, announced that TIMF would appoint a new artistic director, the position that had been left unfilled since the birth of the Festival. The inaugural artistic director was Alexander Liebreich, principal conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, followed by the German cultural manager Florian Riem, and, the composer Unsuk Chin.See also