When sound meets light: Yang In-mo and Kimchi and Chips

When the GS Arts Center approached digital art duo Kimchi and Chips last year with a proposal to collaborate with a classical violinist, the artists were hesitant. The timeline was tight, but the heavier weight was the prospect of fusing two art forms so different in texture. That unease lifted, the duo says, the moment it first sat down with violinist Yang In-mo. "We had no idea where the journey of this collaboration would end up," the duo said in a recent email interview, "but talking with Ya

2026-06-29 13:47:23:00

Culture ministry names first female spokesperson in 36-year history

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Friday that it had appointed its first female spokesperson. Im Young-ah, 52, currently the ministry's sports cooperation officer, has been appointed to the director-general-level post effective Monday. It is the first time a woman has held the spokesperson role since the ministry's predecessor, the Ministry of Culture, was launched in 1990. A Seoul native, Im graduated from Ewha Womans University with a degree in law and entered public service in

2026-06-28 11:00:35:00

Two summer festivals, two routes into the season's classical music

Roughly 450 kilometers separate Daehangno in the heart of Seoul from Jeju Island off the southern coast. This summer, two music festivals — modest in public profile but firm in their convictions — return to those two places, linked this year by a common banner. Both are part of 2026 ARKO SUM FESTA, a brand run by Arts Council Korea (ARKO) that connects 15 theater, dance, music and traditional-arts festivals selected for its national performing-arts festival support program. Staged across the cou

2026-06-24 11:10:19:00

How a Korean 'Turandot' traveled to Europe and came home a decade on

When the 20th Daegu International Musical Festival raised its curtains on June 19, it opened with a homecoming. The festival's flagship production — a musical reimagining of Giacomo Puccini's opera "Turandot" — returned to the stage for the first time in seven years, this time refracted through the European staging it inspired abroad. DIMF first premiered "Turandot" in 2011, as the opening work of the festival's fifth edition. The reception was bruising. "When we first unveiled 'Turandot' 15 yea

2026-06-19 22:31:59:00

Matthias Goerne, Sunwoo Yekwon, to bring Schubert’s 'Winterreise' to Seoul stage

German baritone Matthias Goerne and Korean pianist Sunwoo Yekwon join forces Sunday for a piece they each fell in love with: Schubert’s “Winterreise.” The two will perform the song cycle at Lotte Concert Hall in a concert organized by the Hansae Yes24 Foundation as its second classical music performance. After presenting its inaugural “Winterreise in Summer” in September 2024, the foundation chose to offer the same program again because of the significance the work carries, according to Baek Soo

2026-06-18 14:32:56:00

In Lim Yunchan's Mozart, the left hand carries the feeling

Pianist Lim Yunchan closed a five-concert, all-Mozart tour of Japan and Korea at Lotte Concert Hall on Monday, alongside Camerata Salzburg under Masato Suzuki. The collaboration was Lim's own idea. The 22-year-old, who in 2022 became the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, proposed the series to Camerata Salzburg, the ensemble long resident at the Salzburg Festival and Mozart Week, on a single condition: that the music be all Mozart. The program paired two concert

2026-06-16 18:46:04:00

Michael Sanderling finds a common 'soul' in Sibelius, Tchaikovsky

When Michael Sanderling returns to South Korea this month with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, he will lead the Swiss ensemble from a podium he reached via an unlikely route: nearly two decades as a principal cellist and not a single conducting lesson. The 59-year-old German conductor spent nearly 20 years as a principal cellist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra before he turned to conducting full time. Those years in the orchestra, he says, allow him

2026-06-15 14:31:54:00

Choi Jung-wha, who carried Korea's image abroad for 40 years, dies at 70

Choi Jung-wha, the first Korean to work as an international conference interpreter and a decades-long champion of the country's image abroad, died Sunday of breast cancer. She was 70. She built her career on the conviction that Korea could be explained to the world — and did much of the explaining herself. She interpreted for a succession of South Korean presidents, oversaw more than 1,800 international conferences, and in 2003 founded the Corea Image Communication Institute to shape how the cou

2026-06-14 17:22:37:00

Teacher behind Korean violin stars doesn't believe in 'prodigy'

When violinist Kim Seo-hyun, one of Korea’s most promising young musicians, won the rookie prize at the 14th Daewon Music Awards on June 8, the 17-year-old took a moment to thank her teacher. “I am deeply grateful to my teacher Lee Sunny, who guided me to express my inner self through music and taught me with passion, never setting any limits on me,” she said at the prestigious ceremony, where composer Chin Un-suk received the grand prize and pianist Sunwoo Ye-kwon won the performance prize. The

2026-06-13 16:00:00:00

Three classical musicians united by Beethoven and K-pop

In January 2023, violinist Daniel Lozakovich and cellist Gautier Capucon shared a Paris stage with Blackpink, performing alongside the K-pop group at a televised charity gala hosted by French first lady Brigitte Macron. This month, the two meet again — in Seoul, and for Beethoven. They join pianist Helene Mercier, conductor Mikhail Pletnev and the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra for the Triple Concerto at the Classical Bridge International Music Festival, marking the orchestra’s Korean debu

2026-06-08 15:06:20:00