In mid-February 2023, the 2023 Korean Improv Music Festival will be held, co-scheduled by Seoul Namsan Gugakdang and Seoul Donhwamun Gugakdang.
The 2023 Korean Improv Music Festival begins with a small performance at Donghwamun Gugakdang in Seoul from February 18 to 19, followed by a hanok performance and a main performance at Namsan Gugakdang in Seoul on February 22 and 23.
The 2023 Korea Improv Music Festival is a festival of coexistence, expansion, and coexistence that breaks the boundaries of genres such as classical music, jazz, and electronic music with a focus on traditional music.
Artists who build their own artistic world gather in one place to present a scene that includes an expanded artistic spectrum based on the spontaneity of each genre.
About two dozen artists selected through an open competition will exercise their musical imagination in four workshops and present new music that adds their own method of expression and connection to other genres.
In the Main Performance to be held at the Namsan Gugakdang Concert Hall in Seoul on the 22nd, starting with the first performance of Korean free music pioneer Kang Tae-hwan and artist Yoo Hong, you can encounter a stage focused on the original sound of the instrument and its scalability.
On February 23rd, you can see a stage with very complex sounds and performances, including traditional Korean musical instruments, voices, electronic music, modern dance and DJs.
The artistic director of this festival is Yoo Hong, a daegeum performer. Yoo Hong is a performer who is actively expanding his field of activity by traveling between Korea and Europe and plans to showcase improvisational creative scenes through new combinations that have never been tried before.
Through this 2023 Korea Improv Music Festival, we hope it will function as an artistic platform that brings disparate artists and audiences together, and it will be a time for growth together, facing new endeavors beyond the originality of individual creators and ensembles.
The 1st Korea Improvisational Music Festival will be a place where you can feel the artists’ passion for improvisational music and the spirit of exploring new music, and it will be a time to awaken the artistic sensibility hidden in all of us. Through improvised music, it aims to be reborn as a festival that stimulates and inspires the boundless imagination of contemporary music.
