01 Introduction of Western Classical Music in the Early 20th Century
Christian missionaries played an important role in introducing classical music into Korea in the form of hymns and musicians like Hong Nan-pa, Park Tae-jun, Ahn Gi-yeong and Hyun Jei-myung pioneered early 20th century Western-style songs.
02 Western Classical Music in Korea after Independence
Following the division of the Korean Peninsula, however, some composers defected to North Korea and had tried to write music that reflected the Korean society of their times while composers who chose the South pursued music for music's sake, which did not concern itself with social issues.
03 The Full Bloom of Modern Music in the 1970s
In 1969, the installment of the Seoul Music Festival under the slogan "Our Music, by Our Hands" contributed to discovering talented young musicians through commissions and contests. On this rich soil, modern music enjoyed a heyday in Korea in the 1970s as a number of Korean musicians ...returned home from Germany.
04 The Search for Identity of Contemporary Korean Music
In 1981, a group of composers raised a question about the identity of contemporary music, which they thought represented a culture radically different from the historical reality with which they were faced at the time.
05 New Waves in Traditional Korean Music
Although less fervent than resistance to Western-style music, resistance against the status quo within the school of traditional Korean music began to gain remarkable momentum in the 1980s.
06 Creative Activities in the Mid-1990s
Scholars from the communities of both traditional music and Western-style music have more opportunities to meet with each other and narrow the gap between them by sharing common interest in their respective original works.
07 Leading Young Composers in the New Century
We will look into some remarkable composers at home and abroad who have come into the spotlight since the beginning of the 21st century in this chapter.
Kim Choon Mee [Àú]
o BA in Music, Seoul National University o MA, Ph. D. in Musicology, Michigan State University, USA o Professor of Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Korean National University of Arts o Publisher of Korean Contemporary Composers and Compositions o President of Soyiyeon Research Center for Musicology
Major publications: Introduction to Korean Artiology (1997) The Socio-Cultural Structure of Musicology in Korea (1999) A Study on Composer Paik Byung-dong (2000) A Hundred Years of West-oriented Korean Music (2002) Gateway to the Study of Korean Contemporary Composers (2008) A Case Study of the Influence of the East to the West (2010)