Transcending the Sky

This piece was inspired by Etenraku, the best-known Japanese gagaku court music. In this piece, I attempted to express the strong musical connection between Korea and Japan from antiquity by using fragments of the original Etenraku melody. These fragments are modified, twisted, and merged into a more personal language, in an attempt to construct a reverse imaginary trip to Korean in my mind (“transcending the sky” between the countries).

Piri: Chi-wan Park, Janggu: Woong-sik Kim    Premier: Hawaii Imin Conference Center at Jefferson Hall, East-West Center

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