`Enjoy fresh-cooked music,` says SSF artistic director

“I started this, hoping that Korea could have a good festival of chamber music as other countries do. I’m proud that I have continued this for a decade with chamber music alone,” Kang Dong-suk, the artistic director of the Seoul Spring Festival (SSF) of Chamber Music, said on the festival marking the 10th anniversary this year.

He has been an artistic director since the very first festival. The SSF, major music festival held in every spring, has promoted chamber music that is relatively less familiar to audiences. The festival will be held from April 27 through May 9 at the Sejong Chamber Hall and the Concert Hall of Seoul Arts Center.

“As chamber music has a wide range of repertoires, I tried to introduce new pieces or pieces were not often performed in Korea as well as well as famous ones. The pieces of George Crumb and Jacques Ibert were first introduced by the SSF in Korea.”

The festival performed composer Jean Sibelius’ piano quartet for the first time after getting a picture file of the music manuscript from the Sibelius Museum in Finland because it was not published. Rare pieces like octets and nonets could be performed at the SSF. Over the past years, the festival has attracted more audiences and created fans.

Kang recommended people come to a concert and enjoy music, saying, “Listening an album is like eating a canned food while listening to music at a concert is like eating fresh-cooked food.”