Two touching music festivals in Daegwallyeong

Two music festivals filled the summer in Daegwallyeong with touching experiences this year.

The Great Mountain Music Festival and School (GMMFS), which marks 10th anniversary this year, presented touching moments under the theme of the “Song of Northern Lights.” Cellist Chung Myung-hwa and her violinist sister Chung Kyung-hwa took the helm following Kang Hyo, the festival’s former music director.

The event offered moments of the greatness of music encompassing both eastern and western, old famous and young musicians, and the audience and musicians: “Anton Arensky’s String Quartet” by world-famous cellist David Geringas and his student Kang Seung-min; “Enescu’s String Octet” by Kim Soo-yeon and Jian Wang; “Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons” by young star soloists Shin Hyun-soo, Paul Hwang, Jumi Kang, and Lee Yu-ra; and a perfect ensemble with the String Chamber in which gray-haired Professor Harada Koichiro, a founding member of Tokyo Quartet, and famous contrabassist Bunya Michinori supported other artists.

Was it too impressive? Lee Soon-hee, a native New Yorker and president of the Korea Music Foundation, said, “I’d like to bring this amazing concert to the Lincoln Center in New York.” Where can you listen to Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello played by David Geringas, Gerry Hoffman, and Jian Wang one after another on the same stage? I was so proud of beautiful and confident Korean musicians such as pianists Baek Hye-sun, Sohn Yeol-eum, and Kim Da-sol, and soprano Yu Hyun-ah.

Impressive moments continued with the Pyeongchang Special Music Festival (PSMF), which took place from August 6 through 10 on the same place following the GMMFS.

It is rare that such a music festival comes after an international music festival for professional musicians like the Paralympics being after the Olympics. Moreover, the ensemble of cellist Chung Myung-hwa from the GMMFS, Lee Kwan-bae, a mentally-challenged pianist and music-major freshman at Seoul National University, violinist Jumi Kang, and mentally-challenged flutist Park Ga-eun was very impressive. I also played “Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio” with Jumi Kang and Chung Myung-hwa at the PSMF and the GMMFS.

An ensemble needs concentration and rapport among musicians as well as playing instruments because they have to listen to other musicians’ sound, strike a balance, and express emotions while playing notes. For this reason, it is not easy to play an ensemble for mentally-challenged players who have difficulty in concentration and rapport. I was truly happy with music, watching them overcome challenges, create a great ensemble with other musicians and do their best.

For most mentally-challenged people, playing an instrument needs as much patience and efforts as running for people with a leg problem. Although they are out of tune or off the beat, I become sympathetic to them thinking of how much efforts they have made to make that sound. How hard they have played to overcome those challenges and to be on the stage!

Their pain, happiness, and efforts made parents in the audience show tears, and the proud moment must have been joy to mentors who played with them on the stage.

I think the PSMF was the crystallization of the hearts and efforts of the participants: young players who did their best, and their mentors and staff at the two festivals who did their best behind the scenes. As if embracing all of these, the festival ended with singing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the “Choral.”

The concerts are over and now I think again. Beethoven’s Choral must be played somewhere in the world at this hour. But I think our angels’ “Choral” must have given the biggest smile to Beethoven in heaven.