K-Sori - Episode 4
Remidas & Hansako
K-Sori, is an episodic series presented in association with Lotte Foundation, Noreum Machi and Nowpan Korea, to showcase emergent young musicians from Korea who provide a contemporary twist to traditional instrumentation and compositions. The series presents select winners of the annual Chulsapyo competition that began in 2015 in Korea to provide scholarships to high school and college students to encourage them to study gugak (traditional Korean music) and create qualitative compositions using traditional Korean instruments. The series celebrates the spirit of this initiative which aims to nurture, preserve and promote traditional Korean music amongst young musicians and a contemporary audience, both in Korea and around the world.
Episode 4 - Remidas & Hansako
Remidas 리마이더스
Remidas comprises geomungo player Kim Minyeong and gayageum player Park Jihyeon, both of whom perform creative music with open-mindedness. Since 2015, these two musicians have been exploring and developing the timbres and techniques expressed through improvisation and creating music based on such experimentation. They create music based on traditional compositions and combine this with improvisational music, or the present-day sinawi, i.e. a type of traditional Korean music performed improvisationally by a musical ensemble to accompany the rites of Korean shamanism.
Title
Rise
"Rise" is a piece about the stagnation that we face in our lives and our desire for growth through experience and effort.
"Rise" is Remidas' first composition, in which the solo performance and the duo’s endless interaction using exotic scales stand out. This features the strumming of the geomungo and the plucking of the gayageum, to indicate that constant effort and experience will be the driving force of our life, signifying growth and prosperity.
Performers & Instruments
Kim Minyeong – Geomungo (거문고)
Park Jihyeon – Gayageum (가야금)
Hansako 한사코
Hansako means to 'struggle with death'. The musicians aim to explore traditional musical expressions that resonate and reflect the contemporary era.
Title
Adverb
Adverb displays the emotions and narratives of the characters of the pansori Jeokbyeokga. The music begins with the modification in the stories of each character and of the war, as shown in Jeokbyeokga. The musicians aim to maximize the expression by focusing on the modifications of the mood, sense and emotions that can be felt in a war-like situation, which can be terse and yet, most instinctive.
Performers & Instruments
Lee Eunhui - 12-String Gayageum Byeongchang (가야금)
Kim Solji - Percussion (퍼커션)
O Chorong - Piri (피리), Saenghwang (생황)
Ji Yujeong - Low-range Gayageum Byeongchang (가야금)
K-Sori- Episode 4: Remidas & Hansako
The link to view the performances, will be accessible until Sunday, 9 January 2022.
Cheongchun Yeoljeon Chulsapyo
Cheongchun Yeoljeon Chulsapyo, or Chulsapyo, which began in 2015, is a project that aims to provide scholarships to high-school and college students who are studying gugak (Korean traditional music) and to provide prize money to junior gugak groups to create music with traditional music vocabularies and instruments. This scholarship and competition project is aimed to build a foundation of next-generation Korean musicians who can nurture, preserve and promote traditional Korean music in the contemporary era.
The 6th Cheongchun Yeoljeon Chulsapyo, presented by Lotte Scholarship Foundation and Noreum Machi along with NOWPAN KOREA, will hold the final competition this year in November 2021.
Gugak
Gugak, literally meaning ‘national music’, refers to traditional music that has been practiced over the years on the Korean peninsula. It is generally divided into jeongak, or classical music practiced in the court or for the upper class and minsogak, or folk music practiced in the village or enjoyed by the general public until the early 20th century. For example, jeongak includes music played during Confucian rituals for royal ancestors and Confucian scholars and at various festive events and banquets in the court as well as small ensemble music or classical vocal music that the literati enjoyed or geomungo music that was played to enhance spiritual discipline. Folk music includes folk songs played in various contexts, which have regional characteristics in terms of dialects and melodic modes, some entertainment music such as pansori and sanjo, pungmul practiced during village events, and music played at shaman or Buddhist rituals. Currently, an increasing number of gugak musicians seek to create music that can be enjoyed by contemporary audiences, whether it is created with traditional musical expressions and played only with traditional instruments or it is integrated with western or world music.
Traditional Korean instruments showcased in Episode 4:
Geomungo
The geomungo is a six-string zither with three movable bridges and sixteen convex frets. The modernized geomungo increases the strings and uses nylon strings. Theinstruments are widely arranged in traditional music from solo performance to an orchestra.
Gayageum
The gayageum is a traditional Korean zither-like string instrument. It is probably the best known traditional Korean musical instrument.
Piri
The Piri is a Korean double-reed instrument, made of bamboo, used in both folk and classical (court) music of Korea. Its large reed and cylindrical bore gives it a sound mellower than that of many other types of oboe.
Saenghwang
The Saenghwang which is a free reed mouth organ is a Korean wind instrument constructed from 17 bamboo pipes, each with a metal free reed, mounted vertically in a windchest.
Percussion
Korean percussive instruments are made of metal, animal skin, wood, bamboo, and stone. They are also divided into two kinds, one with different pitches and the other without pitches. The pyeonjong and the pyeonggyeong are the most popularly shown melodic percussive instruments, while the bak, jwago, janggu, kkwenggwari, jing and buk have no pitch.
The K-Sori series is presented in association with
