With sarang: Korean band YOUtopia to perform in the city

CHENNAI: InKo Centre Chennai is organising ‘YOUtopia’ a special musical show by Korean music composer Seo Jungmin and her band, You Byoung Wook, Baek Da Som, and Park Soojung, today at Courtyard, Phoenix Marketcity from 7 pm onwards as a part of their two-city tour.

You will be performing for the first time in Chennai. How do you feel?

We are all very honoured and excited to present the performance in Chennai. I learned that the interest and affection towards K-culture are growing fast in India and we are really glad to be a part of it.

The love for Korean music and musicians in India is huge. Are you eager to interact with K-music fans?

Without a doubt, as the next generation of Korean traditional musicians, I present traditional music that has contemporary twists by adapting the structure of improvisation from Jazz and world music, for instance. It will be fun for K-music fans to compare how Korean traditional music in a contemporary style is similar to or different from K-pop or the K-music they are used to. In a broader sense, the music I do still falls under the mainstream music category.

What made you want to be a part of this event?

My music producer Casey had a meeting with Dr Rathi Jafer, the director of InKo Centre after her watching my showcase at the Performing Arts Market Seoul in 2019. From there, they have looked for possibilities to bring my work to India, and thanks to Dr Jafer, who offered an invitation to this event.

What will you be performing for the audience?

I will present the combination of my second and third album repertoires. Most of the tunes are composed as gayageum solo pieces, but for this specific event, I rearranged the pieces with Korean traditional percussions and daegeum, the traditional wind instrument, along with the collaboration with dance based on the Korean traditional style, to make each tune organically connected to each other and flow like a story as if the audiences feel like watching a theatre work. You can feel the connections between the players through the improvisations we picture and reflect on this exact moment we share together on the stage. I can say giving theatrical and visual effects by expressing spontaneity of the moment with improvisation is similar to the ways of conducting the shaman ritual which I am currently conducting research on.

What are you looking forward to?

It would be interesting to interpret the movements of Korean dance from the Indian point of view and receive feedback as every movement in the Indian traditional dance has its own implication while Korean doesn’t.

Are you working on an album or single?

I released my third album last year, and I just received my doctor’s degree, with a thesis on the shaman ritual music of Jeolla province, the southeastern part of Korea. Nowadays, I am concentrating more on my research to expand my musical perspectives. Besides doing research and performances on regular repertoires, I often do improvising collaborations with musicians from different genres like jazz and electronic music and release the collaboration works as singles.

What’s next for the band?

I will meet Swedish audiences in February 2023. With cello as a duo set and audiences are expected to experience complicated music techniques with newly rearranged tunes. Also, I just showcased as an officially selected artist at CINARS, the biggest performing Arts Biennale in North America and am currently talking about the opportunities to present my works in North America. Hopefully, I can communicate with international audiences more often, and of course in India, too.