German orchestra makes Korean debut next week

A 60-year-old German orchestra known for its diverse musical repertoire will perform in Korea for the first time next week at the Seoul Arts Center.
The Munich Symphony Orchestra was founded by Kurt Graunkeas as the Graunke Symphony Orchestra in 1945. It has performed a wide range of music for over half a century, including concerts, operas, operettas, musicals, ballet, oratorios and church music. The orchestra holds regular concert performances in the Bavarian capital of Munich and tours Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain.
The orchestra has recorded music for more than 500 German films since World War II, as well as the Oscar-winning American film, “The Silence of the Lambs.”
In the early 1990s, permanent conductor Heiko Mathias Foerster was director of the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra and music director of Brandenburg State Theater. Mr. Foerster has been a guest conductor for a number of major orchestras including the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Symphoniker, the Cottbus Philharmonic Orchestra and the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra.
The orchestra will perform on Wednesday and Thursday nights, with somewhat different programs.
Wednesday’s program will include Dvorak’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B Minor, featuring cellist Yang Sung-won, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Thursday’s will feature Bruch’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in G minor, with violin by Yang Ko-woon, along with the Beethoven symphony.
Yang Sung-won has performed at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, NHK Hall in Tokyo and Terrance Theater in Washington, and was invited to the Martha Argerich Music Festival in Japan. Mr. Yang recorded many modern classical albums with the EMI label, and received the Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award for his Zoltan Kodaly collection album in 2003. Gramophone magazine praised Mr. Yang for his superb sense of tune, imagination and technique.
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was composed in the early 1820s and is considered the grandest of his nine symphonies, because of its rousing choral finale in the third movement. When the symphony premiered in Vienna in 1824, Beethoven was deaf and could not hear the audience applauding.
The concerts are at 8 p.m. on both Wednesday and Thursday. Ticket prices range from 40,000 won ($38) to 150,000 won. For ticket information, call 1544-1555 or 1588-7890.

by Limb Jae-un