What do you do when, just hours before you are about to leave the country, you get a phone call asking if you could conduct a choral symphony in just one week? Pianist and conductor Kim Sun-wook, receiving such a call from Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra on his way to Incheon Airport on Dec. 7, asked for some time to think it over -- until he arrived at the airport. “In those 30-40 minutes, I probably did the most thinking ever in my 34-year life,” said Kim during a press meeting on Tue

Performance Dec. 18, 2022

He was as bold as he is young. Pianist Lim Yun-chan, shorn of his heavy, wavy mane, walked onto the stage at Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall Saturday, his stride confident, his first step a loud thump. He sat himself in front of the piano and, without a second’s hesitation, hit the first note of Orlando Gibbons' “Lord Salisbury,” Pavan and Galliard. Lim, who, at 18, became the youngest ever winner at the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June began

Viewpoints Dec. 15, 2022

“I nearly died from COVID-19 last year,” said the New York-based artist Kang Ik-joong in an interview with The Korea Herald earlier this month. “For about a week, I couldn’t breathe well. Lying down didn’t help, sitting didn’t help,” he said. “So one day, I went out to the garden, opened my chest and began taking deep breaths like this,” he said, pushing his chest forward with his arms up wide open and looking upward. “I was able to bre

Arts & Design Nov. 30, 2022

The concert hall remained eerily quiet as the conductor took his place at the podium. Then, all at once, the solemn sound of “Nimrod” from Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” filled the air. The evocative melody proved cathartic for the audience that had gathered less than a week after a crowd surge in Itaewon left 157 people dead. I saw people silently sobbing, wiping away tears. When the music ended, a minute of silence was observed in tribute to the victims of the countr

Viewpoints Nov. 13, 2022

Korea's first public funeral was held for Yi Sang-jae (1850-1927), one of the leaders of Korea's enlightenment period. The event was attended by some 100,000 people, a testimony to his huge following. His voice was heard through a phonograph and a recording of his speech, "To Young People of Joseon," was released in July 1927, four months after his death. "Now, the world is getting worse and worse, there is no morality. People focus only on material things and kill other

Culture Nov. 12, 2022

Early movable metal type printing from the period of the Goryeo Kingdom shows surface tension of the ink, which is a common tendency of liquid on metal surface at rest to shrink into circular liquid drops. An 87-page book from 1239 is full of Hanja characters printed on hanji, traditional Korean paper made from mulberry tree bark, showing the characteristics of movable metal type printing. Might was always right in the Goryeo Kingdom. The political elite in the 13th century were military leaders

Culture Oct. 29, 2022

On May 29, violinist Yang In-mo, the first ever Korean to win the Paganini International Violin Competition in 2015, won the top prize at the jean Sibelius International Violin Competition. A few days later, cellist Choi Ha-young won the first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition held in Belgium. And two weeks after that, pianist Lim Yun-chan won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, becoming the youngest winner at age 18. Lim quickly became a household name -- even those who have

Culture Sept. 15, 2022

   This is the last in a six-part series highlighting the next generation of Korean artists active in the international art scene.-- Ed. Clicking through artist Kim Sung-hwan’s website is like searching through an archive of materials that seem somehow relevant to each other, only their connections are not quite apparent. Each click yields yet another interesting material -- a shot of a paragraph from a book, a black-and-white photo that captures a historical moment, the arti

Arts & Design Sept. 2, 2022

ICHEON, Gyeonggi Province -- When Lee Sang-il, 66, a hairdresser to celebrities, the artsy and ladies-who-lunch, retired some 10 years ago, he hinted that he was about to embark on a very big project. “Keep me posted,” I said. Over the years, he did indeed keep me posted with occasional text messages. And about five years ago, I received photos of a snow-covered hanok and an update: His resort was 90 percent complete. Then came an invitation to the opening party in early May. An h

Travel June 24, 2022

A young woman, born to a Korean mother and white father, stands in a Korean supermarket chain crying as she looks at the side dishes on display that her late mother used to make for her. It’s the scene that opens Michelle Zauner’s bestselling memoir, “Crying in H Mart,” and one that many Korean Americans will have no difficulty imagining. For Zauner, food formed an unbreakable bond between her and her mother. Her mother made Korean dishes for her Korean-born daughter wh

Books June 10, 2022

Front row from left: Didier Beltoise, president of Cs ; Hye-kyung Kim, vice-president of Enzychem Lifesciences ; Kim Young-jin, CEO of Tchai Kim ; Sripriya Ranganathan, Indian Ambassador to Korea; Choi Jung-wha, president of Corea Image Communication Institute CICI; Mukund Santhanam, RE 100 Strategic advisor; Mozes Csoma, Hungarian Ambassador to Korea and Nam Sun-mi, spouse of the Hungarian Ambassador, pose for a photo at the Indian ambassador‘s residence in Seoul on Tuesday before atten

Culture April 20, 2022

How many people can claim to have an entire festival dedicated to their birthday, and while they are still living to boot? Since 2005, rocker Han Kyung-rock, the bassist of iconic punk band Crying Nut, who is also known as Captain Rock, has been celebrating his birthday by hosting a large party in the Hongdae area of Seoul, a notorious center for indie music. Held every year on Feb. 11, Han’s birthday, what started out as a gathering of fellow musicians for drunken revelry and

Performance Feb. 3, 2022

The snow made me do it. After much vacillation over whether to visit the US side of my family over Christmas or to stay in Seoul, I had finally resigned myself to spending the holidays at home. I had booked my flights months in advance, in hopes that the pandemic situation would improve with time. After all, vaccines that can protect against the virus that causes COVID-19, or at least lessen the severity of an infection, were now widely available. We had also learned over more than a year of

Viewpoints Dec. 31, 2021

Photographer MJ Kim’s life has been a wild roller-coaster ride. From studying film in London to landing a job with singer Paul McCartney, a partnership that would last more than 10 years, to taking photos of everyday people and making an award-winning short film, Kim, 49, has done it all. With irrepressible optimism and enthusiasm. A soft bossa nova tune plays in Kim’s studio, his “man cave,” in the hipster neighborhood of Seongsu-dong in Seoul. The white walls of the ro

Culture Dec. 19, 2021

One day, out of nowhere, a son receives a very generous, unexpected bequest from a stranger. One day, out of nowhere, a daughter receives a very generous, unexpected bequest from a stranger. The stranger’s will contained no conditions to the bequests. One day, the father announces that he is taking the bequests from his children. He declares that since the children are part of the family and he is the head of the household, it is within his rights to do as he pleases with what was given

Viewpoints Nov. 28, 2021