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The K-ARTS and the Korean Culture Center in Italy Present an Online Concert
President Kim Bongryol of the Korea National University of Arts (K-ARTS) and director Oh Chung-seok of the Korean Culture Center in Italy (KCCI) co-present an online concert “Il Ritmo (Ensemble di percussion)” via the official KCCI YouTube channel on 18th September 2020 at 7 p.m. (CEST). The K-ARTS and the KCCI originally planned on hosting dance performances in three cities of Italy, Sicily, Florence, and Verbania. They had to replace them into the online concert in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, however.
This concert is a compilation of the past performances by the Korean traditional music performers of the School of Korean Traditional Arts at K-ARTS. It was revised to suit the Italian audience’s preferences. It consists of percussion ensemble team Dan’s janggu-nori “Heehee Nagrak” (four-character idiom meaning, “rejoice”) and the Korean dramatic performing arts team’s music performance “Companion.”
“Heehee Nagrak” makes the original performance by adding unique rhythms to the prototypical samul-nori music originated from three provinces in Korea. For several times, it presents solo performances that are distinguished by individual performers’ skillful playing in the middle of ensemble music. Furthermore, “Companion” is a newly composed work that bases on the solo performances from the Pungmul Rite. Adding on to the powerful percussion rhythms, it harmonizes the sounds of instruments across genres: haegeum, sogeum, daegeum, gayageum, ajaeng, piri, and synthesizer.
The K-ARTS has been running a “K-ARTS Festival” program to promote arts education in Korea by introducing outstanding works created at the K-ARTS to Europe. For this year only, the university planned on bringing seventeen performances and exhibitions to ten European countries, but they were all canceled due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. It has decided to give the online concert instead, entering the post-corona time. “It would have been much better if we could meet our audience face-to-face in Italy, but we will still send them our energy and cheers through this concert,” president Kim said. He also added, “We are also planning another online concert for the audience in Sweden and Poland. I hope, through arts, the world community can overcome the COVID-19 pandemic all together.”
Regarding this concert, director Oh of the KCCI commented, “I’m more than happy to introduce the Korean traditional music to people here in Italy with the excellent performers from the K-ARTS. As this is an online concert, I expect that not just the ones in Rome but people from all around Italy can enjoy this concert. I hope we can invite the performers and hear their playing in real-time soon after the COVID-19 situation all ends.”
A trailer of the concert hit over 1K views in less than a week since its release on the 9th. The KCCI streamed the full performance on its YouTube channel on 19th September 2020 at 2 a.m. (Korean Time).