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Korean Soundscapes

Contemporary Piano Solos

Eun-Hee Park pianist

Jean Ahn composer
Sin Young Park composer
Hyukjin Shin composer
Kay Rhie composer
Kyong Mee Choi composer
Sin Young Park composer
SiHyun Uhm composer
Texu Kim composer
Heeyoung Yang composer

Release Date: March 7, 2025
Catalog #: NV6719
Format: Digital

Not long ago, the West developed an overwhelming love for all things Korean: cuisine, romance dramas, pop groups. Much less notorious is the emerging Korean scene of serious music composers. Internationally-acclaimed pianist Eun-Hee Park aims to shed light on its abundance with her new release, KOREAN SOUNDSCAPES.

The album presents a veritable cross-section of Korea’s living composers, but also of Korean culture at large, particularly its balancing act between established tradition and hyper-advanced modernity. Vignettes of urban life intermingle with folk songs, Western compositional techniques with age-old Korean melodies, and traditional dances with barely tonal meditations. A fascinating peek behind the cultural curtain, enlivened further by Park’s immaculate pianism.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Folksong Revisited for solo piano: I. Nil-lili Jean Ahn Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:59
02 Folksong Revisited for solo piano: II. Song of Mongeumpo Jean Ahn Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:32
03 Folksong Revisited for solo piano: III. Ongheya Jean Ahn Eun-Hee Park, piano 3:21
04 Urban Clichés for Solo Piano: I. Graffiti Hyukjin Shin Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:06
05 Urban Clichés for Solo Piano: II. Monroe Wind Hyukjin Shin Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:35
06 Urban Clichés for Solo Piano: III. Long Drive Hyukjin Shin Eun-Hee Park, piano 3:43
07 Urban Clichés for Solo Piano: IV. Summer in the City Hyukjin Shin Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:44
08 Urban Clichés for Solo Piano: V. Skyscrapers Hyukjin Shin Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:47
09 Milyang (2008) for solo piano Heeyoung Yang Eun-Hee Park, piano 6:24
10 III. Arirang from Three Miniatures for Solo Piano (2003, rev. 2024) Kay Rhie Eun-Hee Park, piano 3:36
11 Breathe Life II (Arirang Variation) Kyong Mee Choi Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:38
12 Broken Waltz SiHyun Uhm Eun-Hee Park, piano 3:58
13 Piano Suite 'Circus' for piano: I. Monkey SiHyun Uhm Eun-Hee Park, piano 1:40
14 Piano Suite 'Circus' for piano: II. Clown SiHyun Uhm Eun-Hee Park, piano 1:22
15 Piano Suite 'Circus' for piano: III. Trapeze SiHyun Uhm Eun-Hee Park, piano 1:40
16 Piano Suite 'Circus' for piano: IV. Lion SiHyun Uhm Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:27
17 Co.Ko. – un poco Loco for solo piano: I. Sangietto Texu Kim Eun-Hee Park, piano 5:02
18 Co.Ko. – un poco Loco for solo piano: II. Emperor of Ballads Texu Kim Eun-Hee Park, piano 2:38
19 Co.Ko. – un poco Loco for solo piano: III. Jingle Up!! Texu Kim Eun-Hee Park, piano 3:26
20 Ari 2019 Sin Young Park Eun-Hee Park, piano 3:58

Recorded May 21-24, 2024 at the University of Montevallo LeBaron Recital Hall in Montevallo AL

Session Producer & Engineer Nick Revel

Mixing & Editing Nick Revel
Mastering Melanie Montgomery

Executive Producer Bob Lord

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Ivana Hauser

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Publicity Chelsea Olaniran
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

Eun-Hee Park

Pianist

Praised by The New York Concert Review for, “a solid foundation of fluent pianism” after her debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Korean pianist Eun-Hee Park enjoys a diverse career as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. She has given numerous concerts throughout the United States, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Brazil, and Costa Rica appearing in various prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea, and Izumi Hall in Japan. Park has been invited to perform at various chamber music festivals including the Pan-Music Festival (South Korea), Osaka International Chamber Music Competition & Festa (Japan), OK Mozart Festival (OK), The Chamber Music Society of Logan (UT), The Artist Series of Tallahassee (FL), Durango Chamber Music Festival (CO), Friends of Chamber Music (CA), and Costa Rica’s Promising Artists of the 21st Century Series under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State.

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Jean Ahn

composer

Born in Korea, Jean Ahn began to study piano and composition at a very early age. Her creative output includes works ranging from solo instruments to full orchestra, as well as choral, dance, and electroacoustic music. Her works have been performed by the Santa Cruz Symphony, Oakland Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Diablo Symphony Orchestra, Earplay, and Leftcoast Ensemble among others. Her ongoing research, “Folksong Revisited”, is a collection of songs that shows her vision to introduce Korean songs and techniques to professional performers in the US. She completed her B.A. and M.M. at Seoul National University and her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. She is the director of Ensemble ARI and a Lecturer at UC Berkeley. She is also the music director for CHIM studio where she teaches music for special needs students. www.jeanahn.com

Sin Young Park

composer

Sin Young (Marie) Park is a New York-based Korean composer born in Bordeaux, France. Her work spans orchestral, choral, and piano music, drawing from diverse influences such as Korean traditional rhythms, jazz, minimalism, and French expressionism. Passionate about blending multicultural sounds, her compositions uniquely bridge Eastern and Western traditions.

Sin Young’s collaborative projects have led her to compose music across various art forms. She served as music director for an award-winning animated short film recognized by the Korea Animation Producers Association and composed the children’s musical “King Se-Jong is Angry,” performed annually in celebration of Korean Alphabet Day since 2014. Additionally, her video game score earned a prize in the XNA Game Contest.

Her works have garnered numerous accolades, including an honorable mention from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and top prizes in the Delta Omicron Triennial Composition Competition, Singapore Asian Composer Festival, and the National Flute Association’s Composition Competition, among others. Her piano piece “Du-Dream Prelude No. 3” was released on the album The Minimal Piano Series, Vol. 1 and is available on Apple Music,

Spotify, and Amazon. Recent performances of her works include “The Things We Dare Not Tell” by Harvard University’s Radcliffe Choral Society, “416 for Orchestra” by the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, and “One Day in November” at the National Flute Association’s Annual Conference. Her song “Come With Me” was performed by a virtual choir for the Music Unites the World Festival.

Sin Young holds degrees from Ewha Womans University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She currently teaches at Drew University and resides in New Jersey with her husband and daughter.

Texu Kim

composer

Texu (pronounced tech-soo) Kim (김택수, b.1980, he/him) writes music inspired by everyday experiences, music about modern (South) Korea, reflecting its multicultural nature, and music that is humorous yet sophisticated. His music also incorporates and expands Korean folk music elements and systems. An impressive roster of ensembles and performers has programmed Kim’s music, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, LA Phil, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Philharmonia, San Diego Symphony, Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Oakland Symphony, the New World Symphony, National Orchestra of Korea, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Youth Symphony, Portland Youth Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Alarm Will Sound, AsianArt Ensemble Berlin, Ensemble Reconsil Vienna, Sejong Soloists, New York Classical Players, the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, C4: Choral Composer-Conductor Collective, Verona Quartet, Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, Collage New Music, San Diego New Music, Ensemble Mise-En, Fear No Music, 45th Parallel, and many more.

 In 2014–2016, he served as the Composer-in-Residence of the Korean National Symphony Orchestra, and he launched its Composers’ Atelier program that commissions, mentors, and performs other Korean composers’ orchestral works. An associate professor at San Diego State University, Kim has received awards and honors from the Fromm Music Foundation, the Barlow Prize, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Copland House, SCI/ASCAP, American Modern Ensemble, Ilshin Composition Prize, and Isang Yun International Composition Prize, in addition to winning a Silver Medal in the 1998 International Chemistry Olympiad. Kim earned his D.M. from Indiana University and prior degrees from Seoul National University.

Hyukjin Shin

composer

Born in 1976 in Seoul Korea, Hyukjin Shin studied both metallurgical engineering and music composition (BMus) in Yonsei University. He continued his musical study while acquiring his master and doctoral degree, respectively from the University of Queensland in Australia and the University of Michigan in the USA. Interested in color and patterns in composition, he had his compositional recital “Music and Inspiration” in 2014 and “A. I. Wanting to be a Comedy Writer” in 2018. He is also a singer-songwriter who published his own album, “How the Love Comes” in 2015 and has issued a CD album “Night Flight” of his chamber pieces in 2019, and another CD album “Farewell, thereafter” of his songs in 2021. He was also the arranger of the musical “Marie Curie” in 2020. He is composing pieces for various performers and ensemble groups in Korea. He has been a director of the Korean Composers Association and a faculty member of Jeonbuk National University since 2018.

Kyong Mee Choi

composer

Kyong Mee Choi, composer, visual artist, painter, organist, and poet, received several prestigious awards and grants including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Robert Helps Prize, Aaron Copland Award, John Donald Robb Musical Trust Fund Commission, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, First prize of ASCAP/SEAMUS Award, Second prize at VI Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo, Honorary Mentions from Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges, Musica Nova, Society of Electroacoustic Music of Czech Republic, Luigi Russolo International Competition, and Destellos Competition.

Choi was a Finalist of the Contest for the International Contemporary Music Contest “Citta’ di Udine and Concurso Internacional de Composica eletroacoustica in Brazil. Her music was published at CIMESP (São Paulo, Brazil), SCI, EMS, ERM media, SEAMUS, and Détonants Voyages (Studio Forum, France). Ravello Records published her multimedia opera, THE ETERNAL TAO, which was supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and Roosevelt University. Aucourant Records published her CD, SORI, featuring her eight compositions for solo instrument and electronics. The project was supported by the IAS Artist Project Grant from the Illinois Arts Council. She is a Professor of Music Composition and the Program Director of Music Composition and Music and Computing Programs at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in Chicago, where she teaches composition. Her music and art can be found at kyongmeechoi.com.

Kay Rhie

composer

Kay Rhie is a composer of contemporary classical music which often explores the issues of belonging and the science of acoustics. Born in South Korea, she grew up in Los Angeles and trained in both the West and the East Coast. Her immigrant experience since her teenage years has given her an artistic base as a hybridizer. She accesses a wide-ranging palette of inspiration from classical, film, European avant-gardes music as well as various literary and artistic traditions. In her choral work Tears for Te Wano, a 19th-century Maori chant and a 16th-century Renaissance motet are fused together while highlighting each distinct chant tradition. Her solo piano work Arirang uses a Korean folk tune as a descant, shrouds it in blues-infused harmony.

Rhie’s music in which “vehemence and reticence, intimacy and plainness co-exist” (American Academy of Arts and Letter) has found an increasing audience. Past highlights include performances by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, the BBC Singers, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the Moscow Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, TM+, Ensemble X, Winsor Music, In Mulieribus, a commission by pianist Gloria Cheng, violinist Andrew Jennings among others.

A recipient of the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Rhie was the Music Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University. Rhie has enjoyed honors and residencies from the Ojai Music Festival, London Festival of American Music, the Tanglewood Music Center (Otto Eckstein Composition Fellow) where she was the winner of the Geffen-Solomon New Music Commission, Seal Bay Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and School, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East among others.

She began playing the piano at age seven in South Korea and continued her musical studies in Los Angeles. After she studied piano performance and composition at the University of California at Los Angeles, she received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition at Cornell University. Her composition teachers include Steven Stucky, Roberto Sierra, Paul Chihara, Ian Krouse, David Lefkowitz, John Harbison, Samuel Adler, Stephen Hartke, and Colin Matthews. She studied piano performance with Xak Bjerken, Malcolm Bilson, and Ick-Choo Moon. Rhie currently teaches composition and theory at UCLA as Assistant Professor of Music.

SiHyun Uhm

composer

SiHyun Uhm is an accomplished composer, pianist, and multimedia producer based in Los Angeles and South Korea. She has received commissions from prestigious institutions such as the US AirForce Academy Band, Yamaha, Rice University, Columbia Digital Audio Festival, and more. SiHyun has been recognized as a Composer Fellow by the American Composers Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Composer Lab, and has received prizes and awards from the President’s Own Marine Band and the Art Council of Korea. Her versatility extends across genres like classical, electronic, pop, rock, and film/game music. SiHyun’s talent has been acknowledged with a 3rd prize in the Shanghai International Digital Music Festival. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, holds a Master’s degree in composition from The Juilliard School, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in composition at UCLA. Additionally, she holds a diploma from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts.

Heeyoung Yang

composer

Inspired by diverse cultural backgrounds, Heeyoung Yang has been actively composing various music with a broad spectrum that crosses multiple dimensions: the East and the West, the old and the new, the irrational and the logical, and the sacred and the secular. Such cross-cultural components are naturally embedded in her approach to musical language, timbre, intonation, lyric, pulsation, time, and expression. These ingredients enable Heeyoung’s music to deliberately touch the audience through a unique way of delivering Korean and Western music tradition in a contemporary form and through lyrical and imaginative storytelling of her thoughts and faith.

Originally from South Korea, Heeyoung Yang received both her D.M.A. and M.M. in music composition from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, working with Joel Hoffman, Michael Fiday, Mara Helmuth, and Douglas Knehans. She also received her M.M. and B.M. from Yonsei University in South Korea, studying with Chan Hae Lee. She lives in the Bay Area of California and teaches composition at Oikos University in Oakland.

Notes

My journey of discovering the gems of living Korean composers’ piano solo repertoire began in 2020. Through this album, I hope to provide an accessible resource for those eager to explore contemporary piano works and offer an enjoyable listening experience for music lovers. I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the composers featured on this album for their unwavering support, to my colleagues and friends who kept me motivated, and to my loving family for their constant encouragement.

This project was generously sponsored by the Fellowship Grant from the Alabama Arts Council and the Mid-Career Summer Stipend from the University of Montevallo.

Folksong Revisited is one of my lifelong projects to reinterpret the Korean folksongs I’ve known since childhood. I aimed to keep the original tunes recognizable while juxtaposing them with my non-Korean musical background. Each piece can stand alone, but when performed as a set, the performer can choose the order, although the numerical sequence is what the composer recommends.

  1. “Nil-lili”
    Using the theme of the Korean tune “Nil-Ni-li-a,” this piece extends the original by incorporating whole-tone scales, chromatic scales, and pentatonic clusters. It maintains the joyful lightness of the original tune, which is one of the characteristic folk songs from Gyeonggi Province.
  2. “Song of Mongeumpo”
    This is a boating song for sailors dreaming of their lovers on land. The song conveys two moods: peaceful and rumbling. I exaggerated the contrasts to portray the emotions of the sailors. The performer should be flexible with the tempo and phrasing.

III. “Ongheya”
“Ongheya” is one of the most famous farming songs from Korea. An antiphonal song, it features a “call and response” between the leader and the farmers. Throughout the piece, the communal spirit of the farmers is emphasized.

  • Jean Ahn

It was once more common for artists to draw inspiration from nature, which often became art simply by depicting it. Today, people are more exposed to busy lifestyles in larger cities, where the relationship between art and nature can feel like a luxury. For various reasons, such as education and jobs, people tend to gravitate toward urban living, making city life the backdrop for emotional growth. The artistic inspiration once found in the sounds of trees, wind, birds, and sunshine has been replaced by tall buildings, the noise of children playing, asphalt, and cars.

Urban Clichés is a piano suite that captures the emotional experiences people commonly share in cities, both large and small, around the world. It is a musical expression of the urban atmosphere, relatable to anyone who has lived in a city in the 21st century.

– Hyukjin Shin (program note translated by Eun-Hee Park)

Milyang is composed with an introduction and five variations along with a main theme at the end of the piece. It is based on the Korean folk tune Milyang Arirang. Unlike other variation pieces, it presents the main theme at the end in an attempt to increase expectation and induce one’s imagination as the audience listens to the entire piece from the introduction and variations. It is composed for pre-college students and selected as one of the test pieces for the senior division of the 5th Sejong Music Competition held in Chicago.

– Heeyoung Yang

Arirang, the last movement from Three Miniatures for Solo Piano, is a love song for distant memories from childhood. Here, a well-known Korean folk song Arirang is used as a cantus firmus or descant (as in the Medieval music). Over and under Arirang, blues-like rhythm and chords shroud the notes of the folk song. While the foreground materials might sound like they come from jazz or post-tonal harmony, the backbone of the movement never departs from tracing the folksong, note by note. The resulting effect sometimes hides the original folk song or highlights it. In this way, the folk song is a secret program note as well as a puzzle work for the performer as well as for the listener. For me, making the notes of Arirang slowly reveal themselves signifies reconciling with memories of the land that I had left but never stopped loving.

– Kay Rhie

This composition is based on a poem written by the composer:

Breathe Life by Kyong Mee Choi

Breathe Life

Not for greed

Not for grief

Breathe Life

For life and for light

Only when you breathe for life

You will know when to let go

Breath life

For grace and for gratitude

The piece ARI 2019 was composed as a homage to the most famous Korean traditional song, Arirang. There are approximately 3,600 variations of 60 different versions of Arirang, all of which include a refrain similar to, “Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo.” It is estimated that the song is over 600 years old. The word “Arirang” itself has no precise meaning in Korean. While the lyrics vary between versions, common themes of sorrow, separation, reunion, and love are present in most renditions.

– Sin Young Park

Broken Waltz invites the audience to participate in an enchanting game of musical connect-the-dots. This composition encourages listeners to explore the intricate interplay between seemingly disjointed elements, gradually assembling the delicate dance of melodies and rhythms. As the fragmented pieces come together to form the recognizable waltz structure, the audience embarks on a delightful journey of musical exploration. The true joy lies in connecting these dots, revealing the seamless continuity within the captivating beauty of the waltz, even in its broken form.

– SiHyun Uhm

I. “Monkey:” The suite opens with the playful antics of a monkey, expressed through lively and agile melodies. The music captures the spirit of the circus’s furry performer, swinging from one musical idea to another with exuberance, while subtly revealing the monkey’s inner world.

II. “Clown:” Transitioning to the clown act, this movement delicately contrasts between happy and sad moods without exaggeration. The music unfolds the nuanced emotions of a clown, creating a whimsical atmosphere that is both charming and introspective, offering a glimpse into the character’s inner reflections.

III. “Trapeze:” Shifting focus to the daring artistry of trapeze artists soaring through the air, this movement captures the suspense and excitement of this high-flying act. Mysteriously shifting melodies evoke the acrobats’ movements while providing a glimpse into their internal emotions and reflections.

IV. “Lion:” Concluding the suite, the Lion movement delves deeper into the world of the lion, exploring both its fierce and tender aspects. The music alternates between bold, powerful passages, capturing the majestic roar and inner intensity of the lion, and moments of rhythmic intensity, reflecting the creature’s dynamic presence in the circus ring. The suite concludes with a vivid portrayal of the lion’s commanding and energetic performance, offering a glimpse into its internal reflections and emotions.

This suite provides a rich and evocative musical experience, bringing not only the external spectacle but also the inner worlds of the circus characters directly to the listener.

– SiHyun Uhm

With “Co.Ko.” (from the title) being the abbreviation of Contemporary Korea and “un poco Loco” meaning a little crazy in Spanish (chosen for rhyming), this piece is a 10-minute musical essay in three movements, reflecting contemporary Korea, where its own traditions and Western influences mingle in a slightly crazy way.

Movement I is titled “Sangietto” and is based on sanjo – a Korean traditional musical genre (actually pretty modern, as it is from late 19th century) – meaning “scattered melody.” A sanjo piece, typically 40–60 minutes long, encompasses a handful of sections with different tempi and prominent rhythmic patterns, getting gradually faster throughout the piece.

This shortened sanjo in around 5 minutes (therefore, “Sangietto”), is based on the structure and rhythmic patterns of the tradition, intertwined with Western music, including rag time, symbolizing the deeply interspersed Western culture in contemporary Korea.

Movements II & III parody K-pop — ballad and dance music, respectively. The title of the former, “Emperor of Ballads,” is the nickname of a famous K-pop ballad singer in the 1990s, Shin Seung Hun. The harmonic progression of the first phrase, which is somehow stereotypical in K-pop ballads, is repeated, as in a passacaglia, and mocked with raucous and shrieking clusters.

The last movement is titled “Jingle up!!” and largely incorporates house music (a genre of electronic dance music that was popular in the United States in 1980s and in South Korea in 1990s), with its common rhythmic and melodic patterns. It is a musical patch work in which several independent musical passages are interwoven, including a modified quotation from Jjalang jjalang (a word mimicking the rattling sound), a famous children’s radio gymnastic song in South Korea, again from the 1980s.

– Texu Kim