Great Music Festival returns to show what's really great about music

Social Affairs

Published: 05 Oct. 2022, 17:37 Updated: 06 Oct. 2022, 08:03

Great Music Festival returns to show what's really great about music

Eins Baum Chamber Orchestra, a 46-member group plays “Jubilo! Jubilo!” by Martin Cordner at the Great Music Festival in Konkuk University in Seoul on Tuesday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Be it a Nanta-style percussion piece or classical masterpieces by Mozart and Beethoven, the performers at the Great Music Festival, an annual festival of musicians with developmental disabilities, displayed their passion for music before a packed hall at Konkuk University in Seoul on Tuesday.

“The piece we will play today will be familiar to many of you in the audience, if you’ve watched the movie, ‘Amadeus,’” said Kim Geon-woo, a violinist of the Dasoni Chamber Orchestra, in a pre-recorded interview played before the orchestra’s performance in the university’s New Millennium Hall. “It is both passionate and intense, and we hope we will be able to convey all that emotion in the music with our performance.”

The festival, held annually since 2017, is organized by Heart to Heart Foundation and supported by SK Innovation, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and SM Entertainment.

Hundreds of teams compete to perform every year, with just six selected as finalists. As of this year, 161 teams, or 1,785 musicians, have competed to perform at the festival, according to SK Innovation.

This year’s performance was the first time the festival returned with an in-person audience since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The six finalist teams were a Nanta percussion band consisting of musicians with Williams Syndrome, a pop band of musicians with sight impairments and developmental disabilities, a pitch-perfect pianist duo, a 10-year-strong clarinet ensemble and two chamber orchestras.

The first prize went to the Eins Baum Chamber Orchestra, a 46-member group, who played “Jubilo! Jubilo!” by Martin Cordner.

“I think it’s wonderful the way the chamber orchestra has brought in both musicians with developmental disabilities and those without,” said Kim Hyoung-hee, director of the Korea Disability Arts and Culture Center, one of the four experts judging the performances at the festival. “The way that the musicians performed today reminds me of an old saying that says that history makes artisans and undying efforts create artists. I hope that this is just the beginning for us to see many more performances by all of the musicians joining us today.”

The teams were judged based on the musicians' skills and stage performances, as well as their track records on how many months or years the members were able to consistently practice together and whether the teams were managed in ways conducive to the growth of the musicians.

The winner was awarded 10 million won ($7,060) and a special award from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Representatives of all six teams who performed at the Great Music Festival at the award ceremony at Konkuk University in Seoul on Tuesday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

The second prize went to the pianist duo, Lee Jung-soo and Nam Yoo-shin, who performed Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 in C minor. They were awarded a 5 million won cash prize and a trophy.

“When we first started to prepare for the performance at the Great Music Festival, I had some concerns about whether we’d be able to have the piece ready by the date,” said Lim Hyo-sun, who teaches piano at Kyung Hee University, who worked with the duo. “But the moment we began practicing, the moment I heard them together on the piano, all those questions went away. These two are professional pianists in the making.”

The six teams that performed at the Great Music Festival on Tuesday, the sixth since its inauguration, were chosen from a total of 285 musicians who went through rounds of auditions in the hopes of making the final cut.

Many parents and family members of the participating musicians said there is a lot of potential for Korea to have more musicians with developmental disabilities, if there were more opportunities for them to train and perform.

“Twenty years ago, when Sung-ho first started to learn to play piano, it was very hard to find anyone who would teach music to someone with a developmental disability,” said Son Min-seo, the mother of Eun Sung-ho who plays both the piano and the clarinet, in an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Eun, who picked up piano at age 10 and the clarinet at age 19, performed at the Great Music Festival as part of the clarinet ensemble. The ensemble, along with Dasoni Chamber Orchestra, jointly took home the third prize at the festival, a 2 million won cash prize and a trophy each.

People with developmental disabilities in Korea take up some 10 percent of a total of 2.6 million people in the country living with a form of impairment or disability as of 2020, according to the Health Ministry.

Jin Ok-i, the mother of accordionist Lee Soon-jae, who’s accompanied Lee to every accordion lesson for the past 23 years, said there are some traits of certain types of developmental disabilities that can actually help a musician.

“Lee would sometimes practice seven hours a day, always super concentrated on playing the instrument,” Jin said. “His memory is really good, so much so that he didn’t have trouble memorizing the music or learning theories.”

Lee’s team at the festival, a pop band, performed American girl group Pussycat Dolls’ “Sway.” They took home the fourth prize, along with another team, the Aria Nanta.

Many of the teams performing at the Great Music Festival were established as part of an effort by local district offices or community centers for people with disabilities run by local governments.

In addition to facilities, financial support is often key for the further development of such musicians, said Cho Soo-eun, a musician who’s been working with pianists Lee and Nam, for the past two years.

“In the years I’ve helped people with developmental disabilities train as musicians, I have too often seen cases where they give up on becoming professional musicians because of the financial burden,” Cho told the Korean JoongAng Daily. “What stops many parents from investing in these music lessons for their children with developmental disabilities is they are not guaranteed a career. We need to create a society where musicians with developmental disabilities can thrive as musicians and can make a stable career out of their passion for music.”

For some contestants at the Great Music Festival, giving music a chance has been a life-changing choice.

“People with developmental disabilities tend to exhibit psychological anxiety and forms of compulsive disorders,” said Kee Ju-hyan, the mother of Kim Min-su, a member of the all-percussion Aria Nanta team. “But I’ve seen Kim on the drums for the past eight years, and over time I could see that it not only helps him find peace but also a sense of mission in his life that helps him be a more confident and happier person.”

Rhie Hyun-ju, conductor of the Eins Baum Chamber Orchestra, recalled some of the drastic changes she's seen in one of the members of the orchestra in recent years.

“I still remember the first time I met with Yun Jun, our flutist in the chamber orchestra, five years ago,” she said. “He told me that he is the unhappiest person in the world and that he struggles with the way people stare at him for appearing different from others around him.”

Now, as they practice together regularly, Rhie says she notices how much more confident Yun has become in expressing himself through music.

“Some people may think that people with developmental disabilities may not know or understand as many emotions as people without developmental disabilities, but it’s quite the contrary,” she said. “Music helps them learn different emotions that they may not have experienced before, and because they’re learning them with a cleaner slate, it helps them express them more clearly. Their earnest and pure passion for music has a healing power, I think that’s why we’re all so drawn to their performances.”

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]