Exploring Seoul

After the first rehearsals of the tour, the orchestra headed out to explore Seoul.  One group went to Jogyesa Temple, the largest active Buddhist temple in central Seoul.  Three large golden Buddha  figures sit under a ceiling hung with yellow and green.  A temple guide welcomed some students and showed them around the temple.  Some students sat on cushions amongst the people reading, meditating, and praying. 

 

After absorbing the quiet of the temple, the group ventured toward Insadong, a nearby artsy area of Seoul.  Galleries, craftspeople, tiny stores, and coffee shops line the narrow stone streets.  Inside a second-floor café, people took refuge from the heat with iced drinks and air conditioning.

 

That evening, in the lobby of the hotel, students met up to discuss where to have dinner and what parts of Seoul to find. They set out in groups, eager to extend their day with  their own explorations.

 

A visit to Gyeongbokgung Palace

On Thursday, July 17, after the Philharmonia’s first rehearsal in Seoul — and lunch — the orchestra members were offered two choices of excursions into the history of Korea. One was a visit to Gyeongbokgung, the main place of the Joseon Dynasty. Thought the weather was very hot and humid, the visit into Korea’s colorful history was worth the effort.

Built in 1395 by King Taejo, Gyeongbokgung was the center of the royal capital of Seoul, then known as Hanyang. It was destroyed by fire by the Japanese invasion of 1592 and reconstructed in 1868 during King Gojong’s reign, by order of the Prince Regent. The palace he created was a magnificent labyrinthine complex of 330 buildings. Most of the buildings were dismantled during the Japanese occupation, but an effort to restore Gyeongbokgung Palace to its former glory has been ongoing since 1990.

Just as you enter the Palace Gates, there is a large open square.

Geoncheonggung, a "palace within a palace" for King Gojong and his consort. Built in the middle of a beautiful pond, it was the tragic scene of Empress Myeongseong's assassination in 1895.

Orchestra members rest on the steps of one of the many buildings in the complex.

Magnificent Roofs with spectacular, ornate carvings and painted patterns were everywhere

Philharmonia assembles in Seoul for rehearsals and concerts

Banner hailing the Philharmonia at the Seoul Plaza Hotel, the orchestra’s home during its stay in Korea

Members of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale converged on Seoul, Korea, on July 15 and 16 in preparation for the orchestra’s historic four-concert tour of Korea and China. The largest group of around 50 musicians and staff left New Haven for New York’s JFK airport, and later departed for Seoul by way of Shanghai in the small hours of the morning on Tuesday. Others flew to JFK from Boston, Burlington, Washington D.C., and Rochester to connect with the group. The balance of the orchestra flew in from Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tuscon, Vancouver, Bangkok, Paris, Kiev, Madrid, Nanjing, and other Asian cities to meet the orchestra in Seoul.

Shinik Hahm leads the orchestra’s first rehearsal at the Kon Kuk University’s Millennium Hall. Below, Kon Kuk music students view the rehearsal from a gallery.

The orchestra’s concerts in Seoul and Beijing are already virtually sold out, say local concert promoters, and the chorus section of the Seoul Arts Center behind the orchestra will be opened up to accommodate the demand for tickets.

On Thursday the orchestra went to work rehearsing programs for Sunday’s  Seoul Arts Center concert and for three concerts to take place the following week in Beijing and Shanghai. Rehearsals are taking place at Kon Kuk University, the Alma Mater of Shinik Hahm, the Philharmonia’s music director. The Seoul program include’s Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” Soloist in the Beethoven Concerto will be YSM student and Seoul native Sun-Mi Chang.

The Beijing concerts will be part of the Musicathlon that began in that city on July 9 as a pre-Olympic cultural event, organized by the Yale School of Music and Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. On July 22, the orchestra plays in the Forbidden City Concert Hall with cellist Jian Wang, the renowned cellist from Shanghai who is a graduate of the Yale School of Music. The final Musicathlon concert brings together the Yale Philharrmonia, the orchestra and chorus of the Central Conservatory, and Yale alumni singers Mary Phillips and Heather Buck under CCM’s Yongyan Hu for Mahler’s Second Symphony at the National Center for the Performing Arts. The tour concludes with the orchestra, once again joined by Jian Wang, in concert in Shanghai.