Traditional sound is finding a new voice. Composer Baek Yumi premieres her original music performance “Jeongeum (靜音): Flow of Empty Space” on May 16 at the Donhwamun Korean Traditional Music Center in Seoul.
The performance launches the “Jeongeum” project series, which reinterprets the aesthetics of Jeongak through a contemporary musical language. Rather than reproducing traditional melodies verbatim, Baek stretches them into a fresh sensory space shaped by slow breathing, restrained resonance, and the silences that hang between notes.
Onstage, the contrasting textures of geomungo, piano, and electronic sound unfold together. Traditional tonal frameworks collide with modern harmonies and layered sound design, gradually transforming the music from a linear narrative into an immersive spatial experience.
The program is organized as five interconnected scenes: “Prologue. Gongseong (空聲),” followed by “Part I. Breath,” “Part II. Flow,” “Part III. Resonance,” and concluding with “Epilogue. Water Lily.” Baek treats each section not as an individual piece but as part of one continuous breath, leading listeners through shifting emotional shades.
The work begins with subtle, nature-derived gestures and the slight variations that emerge through repetition. Those small shifts create lingering air and resonance. The geomungo’s deep, traditional timbre weaves with piano lines while electronic elements expand the sense of space, folding different perceptions of time into a single current.
Geomungo player Kim Hyuksoo and pianist Lee Seungwoo appear in the performance, with sound design by Jung Euisuk. Their contributions do not sit apart; they function as interlocking textures within a single, flowing structure.
Baek Yumi studied classical composition in the United States and earned a doctorate in composition from the University of Hawaiʻi’s College of Music. Her work has long explored the intersection of Korean traditional music and Western composition, reframing familiar melodies through a contemporary lens. With the “Jeongeum” series, she extends that inquiry into a more immersive, spatially oriented form.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
