Over 5,000 Seoulites enjoyed an evening of free music Saturday, as the award-winning Gracias Choir held a public concert for citizens at Seoul Plaza in the heart of Seoul.

The stage featured internationally esteemed musicians such as conductor Boris Abalayan, who is a professor at Russia’s Saint Petersburg Conservatory, pianist Igor Lebedev and British flutist Paul Edmund-Davies, who participated in the soundtracks of the “Harry Potter” and “Mission: Impossible” film series.

Amid a light drizzle, the choir performed classic opera songs, such as “Italian Street Song” and “O Sole Mio,” alongside Johannes Brahms’ “Lullaby” and Korean folk song “Arirang.” The main program featured a solo of Joseph Haydn’s Cello Concerto 3rd movement, a piano solo of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” and a flute solo of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.” The concert wrapped up with “Nessun Dorma,” from the Giacomo Puccini opera “Turandot,” and Secret Garden’s “You Raise Me Up.”

Founded in 2000, Gracias Choir is an internationally recognized choir, winning acknowledgements at last year’s Riva del Garda Choral Festival in Italy and Montreux Choral Festival in Switzerland. In May, the choir nabbed the top prize at the International Chamber Competition Marktoberdorf, one of the world’s most prestigious chamber choir competitions.

By Rumy Doo (bigbird@heraldcorp.com)