Korean Music Performance: Playing Korean Sanjo on the Violin

GWIKS Special Event

Playing Korean Sanjo on the Violin

The Kim Ilgu School of Ajaeng Sanjo, Violin Version: The Long Sanjo (World Premiere)

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

4:00 PM – 5:30 PM EDT

In-Person Event

University Student Center, Continental Ballroom

800 21st Street, NW, 3rd Floor, Washington DC, 20052

What is Korean Sanjo Music?

Sanjo is a genre of Korean traditional folk art music for a solo melodic instrument such as the zither kayagŭm or flute taegŭm, accompanied by an hourglass-shaped drum called Changgu. Sanjo consists of several movements of increasing speed built on the unique Korean rhythmic patterns called Changdan. The solo instrument plays dramatic and expressive melodic phrases that draw from the inflections of spoken Korean that are also characteristic of p’ansori singing.  Although a native of Korea, violinist Soh-Hyun Park Altino crossed paths with traditional Korean music only in 2019 while investigating distinctive musical elements in Sanjo for Violin and Piano (1955) by La Un-Yung (1922-1993), her maternal grandfather. Since then, supported by various research grants, she has pursued a new line of study of interpreting traditional ajaeng sanjo on the Western violin. In addition to studying extensively with traditional musicians in Korea, she has trained on the Kim Ilgu School of Ajaeng Sanjo with the composer-performer Kim Ilgu, Holder of National Important Intangible Cultural Property. This lecture and world premiere are made possible by the 2023 Korean Studies Grant of the Academy of Korean Studies and the Faculty Global Research Award of the Wheaton College.

Performers

Soh-Hyun Park Altino (Violin) came to the U.S. at age sixteen in pursuit of better musical educational opportunities and earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein. Highly regarded as a gifted teacher and a versatile performer of solo and chamber music, Park taught at the University of Memphis and the University of Wisconsin-Madison prior to her current appointment as Associate Professor of Music at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Jeong Junho (Changgu) has concertized extensively across the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia since 2004 when he became a member of the National Gugak Center in Seoul. The Presidential Prize winner of the 2002 Haenam National Competition for Traditional Percussion, Jeong is a highly sought-after p’ansori and sanjo collaborator. He received his masters and doctoral degrees in Korean Music Performance from Chung-Ang University and Hanyang University, respectively. Jeong currently serves on the faculty at Seoul National University and Hanyang University in Seoul.

Moderator

portrait of Jisoo Kim in professional attire

Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University. She is Founding Director of the GW Institute for Korean Studies (2017-Present) and Founding Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center (2018-Present). She also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She specializes in gender, sexuality, law, emotions, and affect in Korean history. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2016), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled Criminalization of Intimacy: Adultery Law and the Making of Monogamous Marriage in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.