KOREA 2009 - interkultur.com

세계로 뻗어가는 한국의 합창
Choral music of Korea goes out to the world
Introduction of choral music in Korea, as well as
that of Western music, has its root on the period
of introducing Christianity to Korea. Korean
composers led the introduction of Western music
at the beginning of the period. Arias were
the first to be introduced, and then followed by
introduction and outbreak of choral music.
A singing movement, with children‘s song
being the center of it, had popularized in
1920‘s and it had played a role of intensifying
patriotism to people under Japan‘s colonial
rule. Songs like ‚Ban-dal(a half moon), ‚Go-hyang-eui-bom(Spring
in home)‘ were popular at
that time.
Ik-tae Ahn, the composer of Korean national
anthem whose activities were noted since
1930‘s, brought out ‚Symphonic Fantasia Korea‘
to the world, which was known later as a
highly innovative orchestral piece of the time. It
was first performed by the National Symphony
Orchestra of Ireland in Dublin of which Ahn was
serving as a conductor.
In particular, the composer Tae-jun Park became
the first Korean professional in the field of
choral music in 1932 as he studied and took
a master‘s degree in choral conducting from
Tusculum College and Westminster College in
the U.S. After his return to Korea, he had been
a professor in Sung Sil College for 35 years
and made a distinguished contribution to the
development of choral music in Korea thereafter
as a dean of Music College in Yeonsei
University by establishing the department of
sacred music in the university.
After the remarkable foundation of Oratorio
Singers in 1945, the Korean choral music society
has been led by a sequence of great musical
leaders, such as Sang-su Gwak, Young-su
Nah, Hak-won Yoon, Byung-mu Yu, Myung-yup
Kim, Heung-kyung Kim, Young-mok jang and
so forth. Each of them had greatly influenced
the choral music society as a pioneer of the
time, therefore the organization, specialization,
and popularization of choral music association
has tremendously improved.
In 1973 and 1978, National Chorus of Korea
and Seoul Metropolitan Chorus, the two of the
earliest professional choirs in Korea, were founded
by the conductor Young-su Nah, and this
initiated many cities in Korea to have its own
professional choirs and about 50 city choirs
are present today. This unusual movement occurred
in Korea can never find its precedence
anywhere in the world. The establishment of
professional choirs had brought numerous difficulties
in balancing the conductors in choirs
at first, but it helped the enlargement of choral
singing population and the development of
choral society.
The popularization of choral music had coincided
with the theme of revitalizing Korean society
when Saemaeul(new community) movement
to modernize Korean society took a place
in 1971 while the president Jeong-hee Park‘s
term in the office, thus inventing a new form of
spreading choral music to local communities.
It was originally led by government but soon,
choral singing merged into the lives of common
people more than ever. Schools, companies
and other private organizations sought the
way of mutual development through singing
and competing in the choral competitions hosted
as their own.
While these changes still going on, Korean
Federation of Choral Music (KFCM) was established
in 1973, and with the atmosphere of
choral singing highly arose than ever, Korean
Symphony Orchestra hosted the first and the
세계로 뻗어가는 한국의 합창 · Choral music of Korea goes out to the world
74