ConcertPulse
Shiyeon Sung
“It can sound like electronic music; it can bring forth ghostly tones or even mighty explosions.” Thus the Berlin-based South Korean composer Unsuk Chin describes the sheng, the Chinese mouth organ. šu, her concerto for sheng and orchestra, was written for the virtuoso Wu Wei, who often takes up contemporary music with his instrument. Like Unsuk Chin, Mark Andre knew from the very beginning who would give the world première of his clarinet concerto … über … : his preferred soloist, Jörg Widmann. Widmann went into seclusion with him for weeks, and partly rediscovered his own familiar instrument. But to open the concert the Korean conductor Shiyeon Sung recalls the early avant-garde of her native land. The world première of Réak, given at Donaueschingen in 1966, marked the European breakthrough of Isang Yun. This powerful orchestral piece draws on the harmonic potential of the East-Asian mouth organ, thereby bringing the concert full circle.
