K-Music 2018

2 october – 20 november 2 october 2018 – 20 november 2018

a letter from the director

Dear Friends, The K-Music Festival is back, returning this autumn for its fifth year!

As we celebrate this milestone we have once more invited a host of extraordinary musicians to join us. For 2018’s festival, I’m sure you will agree, we have prepared a very special line-up including the legendary singer of Pansori, Korea’s traditional solo opera, Ahn Sook-Sun. The evening will be a very rare opportunity to watch a living national treasure from Korea sing a full length pansori performance in London.

Heemoon Lee returns with the band SsingSsing, they received rave reviews from New York critics and audiences last year. They have successfully combined traditional Korean folk songs with contemporary music and performance. Near East Quartet will have a UK debut with their new album on ECM Records with the special guest, Kyungso Park, who performed with Andy Sheppard two years ago at K-Music.

In addition, Ensemble E-DO will also have their debut in London with us.

Kyung-Hwa Yu, the leader of Ensemble E-DO will play janggu, a traditional Korean percussion instrument as well as cheolhyungeum, a Korean metal-stringed Instrument that sounds like an electric guitar. In addition, Urban Sound will join the festival with their unique combination of Asian percussion and piano, their band features three female musicians from Korea and Taiwan. Finally, Youn Sun Nah will return to London once more to let us hear her magical voice again.

I know that audiences in Korea are envious of such unrivalled talent at a single festival.

So please do not miss this rare opportunity to enjoy such a wide range of Korean music in London and catch a glimpse of what the future holds for K-Music too.

Let’s meet at the venues.

Hoseong Yong Director, Korean Cultural Centre UK

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ssingssing SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER | PizzaExpress Jazz Club, Soho, W1D 3RW TUESDAY 2 OCTOBER | Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX PAGE 4

ENSEMBLE e-do TUESDAY 9 OCTOBER | Rich Mix, Shoreditch, E1 6LA PAGE 6

urban sound friday 19 OCTOBER | Kings Place Hall 2, Kings Cross, N1 9AG PAGE 8

ahn sook-sun Saturday 3 NOVEMBER | Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX PAGE 10

near east quartet + Kyungso park MONDAY 19 NOVEMBER | Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX PAGE 14

youn sun nah + hyelim kim & alice zawadzki TUESDAY 20 NOVEMBER | Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX PAGE 16

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ssingssing Sunday 30 September, onstage 1.30pm, £15 **EXTRA SHOW** PizzaExpress Jazz Club, Soho Tuesday 2 October, onstage 7.45pm, £15 + bkg Purcell Room, Southbank Centre

‘Very glam, very rock and roll and very ready to play with the concept of gender’ NPR

SsingSsing have been making waves across the globe, bringing glam rock and funk elements together with a charismatic theatrical twist that takes inspiration from shamanic tradition. In the words of vocalist Heemoon Lee ‘in Korean traditional art, male shamans, called baksu, have the body of a male. But as mediums, they need more than a single sexual identity, because they’re channeling both male and female spirits. When I act a female character and sing, I have to overcome the fact of my being a male sorikkun (singer), and try my utmost to bring a more neutral, unisex feeling to the performance’.

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‘Heemoon Lee, Da-hye Choo and Seung-tae Shin strutted and harmonized like a young Madonna on steroids. Dressed respectively as femme fatale, ingenue and badass, they kept a multicultural crowd on their feet’ New York Music Daily

Reminiscent of the rock and worldbeat of Talking Heads, SsingSsing seamlessly combine their storytelling with cool wit and stunning Korean vocals.

‘One look at (and listen to) the cross-dressing, Asian rock band Ssing Ssing and you would hardly think they’re singing music inspired by traditional Korean folk. But SsingSsing isn’t like any other band I’ve ever seen or heard. The understated music, the small dramatic gestures and the costumes all combine for one of my most memorable Tiny Desk Concerts of all time’ Bob Boilen, NPR Tiny Desk producer

Join nearly 2 million people and watch their NPR Tiny Desk live performance by visiting bit.ly/ssingssing

[left - right] Seung-tae Shin (vocal), Younggyu Jang (bass), Taewon Lee (guitar), Da-hye Chu (vocal), Chuhee Lee (drum), Heemoon Lee (vocal)

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ensemble e-do Tuesday 9 October, onstage 7.30pm, £15 + bkg Rich Mix, Shoreditch

‘The fusion of Asian and Western music is well-balanced.

The virtuosity and creativity of the musicians is fascinating’ Global Music

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‘Bridging the gaps of Korean traditional music, jazz and rock and soars far and wide into the wonders of fusion’ World Music Central

[left - right] JC Curve (bass), Kyung-Hwa Yu (chullhyunguem), Kyung-Gu Lee (daegeum), Young-Deok Jo (guitar)

The rhythm-heavy Ensemble E-DO is led by Kyung-Hwa Yu, one of the most acclaimed artists in Korea. Not only does the sextet employ traditional Korean instruments, such as the chulhyungeum an iron-stringed instrument that sounds like an electric guitar), janggu (drum) and daegeum (bamboo flute), but double bass and acoustic guitar play alongside, accompanied by soaring pansori vocals from Youn-Koung Eo. The performance will include visuals by Pung-Youn Cho.

Past work by Visual Director Pung-Youn Cho

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urban sound Friday 19 October, onstage 8pm, ÂŁ14.50 + bkg Kings Place Hall 2, Kings Cross

Urban Sound is a collaboration between Korean percussionist Jihye Kim and Taiwanese/Australian pianist Belle Chen, based in London, that combines the traditional and experimental with an array of Eastern instruments and Western piano.

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Jihye Kim

Belle Chen

Sita Chay

Seeyool Kim

Jihye is part of a movement of young, Korean musicians developing the roots of traditional Korean music into a contemporary territory. She introduced Belle to its complex rhythms and pansori vocals when they met improvising at Cafe OTO. Together with Belle’s twist on a classical yet prepared piano, they develop Urban Sound to push musical boundaries around their separate cultures and the links between them.

‘Their music transcends cultural barriers and embraces Asian tradition and modern sound’ Gugak FM, Korea

Their music keeps evolving and they often invite special guests to join them.

For this concert, Korean piri (double reed bamboo instrument) player Seayool Kim and Latin Grammy Award winning Korean violinist Sita Chay play with Urban Sound for the first time.

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ahn sook-sun Saturday 3 November, 6pm, £15 + bkg Purcell Room, Southbank Centre

a rare oPPortunity to see korea’s traditional oPera sunG by this leGendary korean Pansori sinGer ahn sook-sun

‘In pansori, the intimacy, the translation, the audience and the ambience are just as important as the music.

When all that comes together, pansori really is one of the world’s great musical art forms’ Simon Broughton/Songlines

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Ahn Sook-Sun has sung the complete canon of five pansori pieces in their entirety. She has been performing and winning awards internationally for decades, and she was the pansori composer on the Korean production of Trojan Women that played two sold-out nights at the Southbank Centre in June as part of LIFT – The Guardian described it as ‘the Greek tragedy that became a Queer Korean opera’.

In K-Music 2018, she will be performing the pansori Heungbo-ga (for a full description of the piece, see page 12). She will be joined for this performance by Jun-Su Kim – he played the role of Helen in Trojan Women.

Jun-Su Kim

‘If you listen to the finest work of pansori, you can feel your heart stop beating. Pansori isn’t just about singing – the word “sori” means “sound” in Korean. If you listen to pansori closely, even though the audience may not understand the language, they can feel the emotion of the pansori singer expressed through sound and human breath’ Ahn Sook-Sun

joe boyd talks pansori Queen Elizabeth Foyer, 4.30pm, FREE Joe Boyd is a record producer and writer. He worked with Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, REM, John Martyn, Olivia Chaney, and a host more of the world’s expressive and passionate artists. His enthusiasm for Bulgarian singing is well-known, but now K-Music 2018 is pleased to out him as a secret pansori lover. He says ‘Pansori is as rich and earthy as flamenco or blues, with lyrics that are as poetic as either of those forms’, and before Ahn SookSun’s performance, he will be talking about why pansori is such an enthralling artform.

Admission is free and there’s no advance booking – just come along.

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AHN SOOK-SUN PERFORMS HEUNGBo-GA

There are five surviving stories within Korea’s pansori tradition and Heungbo-ga is the most humorous and immediately enjoyable, depicting the lives of ordinary people and their trials and tribulations.

Greedy, rich Nolbo has inherited his parents’ house and land and banished his poor but good-hearted brother Heungbo, leaving the brother with nothing but a large family to support. One day, Heungbo finds a swallow with a broken leg. He cares for the bird, who repays this kindness by bringing Heungbu a gourd seed to plant. When the seed bears fruit, it is full of treasure. Upon hearing of this, the unscrupulous Nolbo is overcome with jealousy and breaks the swallow’s leg, hoping for his own reward. Nolbo receives a gourd seed too, but finds that it is full of goblins…

This performance will be surtitled in English The performance will begin at 6pm and will run about three hours including one interval. Latecomers may not be admitted until the interval.

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near east quartet + kyunGso Park Monday 19 November, onstage 7.45pm, £15 + bkg Purcell Room, Southbank Centre

‘The NEQ’s music opened a new epoch of music by combining jazz and Korean traditional music with outstanding creativity’ Korean Music Awards

Near East Quartet have been a force in Korean music since 2010, juxtaposing elements of contemporary jazz and traditional Korean music with pure sound exploration to create new forms. Saxophonist/clarinetist Sungjae Son and guitarist Suwuk Chung have been members from the outset and the group has recently added pansori singer Borim Kim and a highly creative drummer Soojin Suh. They release their self-titled album on ECM this summer.

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Kyungso Park is a composer, player and improviser of gayageum, a traditional Korean stringed instrument that sounds like a cross between a harp, an oud and a theremin. She freely breaks down the borders between traditional and contemporary music and at K-Music 2016 she premiered an exquisite collaboration with British saxophonist, Andy Sheppard – ‘an engrossing improvisational encounter.’ (The Guardian) She returns this year to play her own solo concert.

‘She treated a rapt crowd to a wide swath of music, both cutting-edge original compositions and traditional numbers. As serious and meticulous a composer and player as she is, she’s also a very funny, engaging performer’ New York Music Daily

Produced in association with the EFG London Jazz Festival

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youn sun nah + hyelim kim & alice zawadzki Tuesday 20 November, onstage 7.30pm, £15-£25 + bkg Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

‘A style-blending star. A discreet, diminutive vocal giant, Youn Sun Nah keeps insisting on an agenda that’s always her own’ ★★★★ Guardian

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One of Korea’s great voices plays a rare London concert. Youn Sun Nah first made her name in France, where Le Monde enthused about her ‘magnificent voice and passionate originality.’

There’s a clear influence of chanson in her performance – whether she’s singing Johnny Cash, Nine Inch Nails, a jazz standard or one of her own terrific songs, she’s always telling a story.

’Her determination to make each number a self-contained art song made this concert — the highlight of the K-Music Korean music and arts festival — a fascinating exercise in contrast and control’ ★★★★ Times

Korean Hyelim Kim, a superb Daegum (bamboo flute) player, has played with Nils Frahm and Lubomyr Melnyk, literally breathing new life into traditional Korean music. Violinist and vocalist Alice Zawadzki has such ability to compose, perform and improvise across genres, such as jazz and classical, bringing her dramatic voice, warm humour and creative enthusiasm, leading Jamie Cullum to describe her as ‘beautiful and uncategorisable – a real force to be reckoned with’.

Produced in association with the EFG London Jazz Festival

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CREDITS Festival Director: Hoseong Yong (Director, Korean Cultural Centre UK) Festival Producer: Jaeyeon Park (Producer, Korean Cultural Centre UK) PR: Paul Wadey (Korean Cultural Centre UK) Press: Sally Reeves Marketing Manager: Joohyun Song (Korean Cultural Centre UK) Co-ordinator: Ayoung Lee (Korean Cultural Centre UK)

This year the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) has completed the UK side of the Korea-UK Season, a bilateral collaboration that has seen British and Korean artists, dancers, musicians, filmmakers, and creatives present their works up and down both nations. However, the KCCUK’s work doesn’t stop there. As the organiser of the K-Music Festival, we will present six outstanding Korean bands this autumn and our film team will present a documentary season of important independent films made between 1988 and 2017 before our annual Film Festival begins. In addition, we will continue to present exhibitions in our gallery space, chamber concerts in our performance space, film screenings, talks, classes and cultural programmes.

kccuk.org.uk

@kccuk

/kccuk

/kccuk

Serious produces and directs the annual K-Music festival, and also produces and curates the programming of the EFG London Jazz Festival and the contemporary music programme of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

For full details of our work, please see

serious.org.uk

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

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VENUE info

Kings Place Hall 2 90 York Way, KINGS CROSS, LONDON N1 9AG kingsplace.co.uk | 020 7520 1490

PIzzaexpress jazz club 10 dean street, soho, LONDON w1d 3rw pizzaexpresslive.com| 020 7439 4962

PURCELL ROOM, SOUTHBANK CENTRE BELVEDERE RD, waterloo, LONDON SE1 8XX SOUTHBANKCENTRE.CO.UK | 020 3879 9555

QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL, SOUTHBANK CENTRE BELVEDERE RD, waterloo, LONDON SE1 8XX SOUTHBANKCENTRE.CO.UK | 020 3879 9555

RICH MIX 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, SHOREDITCH, LONDON E1 6LA richmix.org.uk | 020 7613 7498

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ssingssing

SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER | PizzaExpress Jazz Cafe TUESDAY 2 OCTOBER | Purcell Room

ensemble e-do

TUESDAY 9 OCTOBER | Rich Mix

urban sound

friday 19 OCTOBER | Kings Place

ahn sook-sun

saturday 3 november | Purcell Room

NEAR EAST QUARTET + KYUNGSO PARK monday 19 november | Purcell Room

YOUN SUN NAH + HYELIM KIM & ALICE ZAWADZKI TUESDAY 20 NOVEMBER | Queen Elizabeth Hall

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find out more at kccuk.org.uk