Beautiful, brooding sound
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Woong San will perform at the The Korea Times Spring Music Festival held on April 1 at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. / Courtesy of Pony Canyon Korea
Jazz songstress Woong San talks about upcoming performance at Sejong Center
By Baek Byung-yeul
Woong San is a jazz singer who sounds more like a blues singer. Her deep, husky voice and brooding delivery offers a striking contrast to Na Yoon-sun, the country’s other famous jazz vocalist who is precise and flamboyant like an opera diva.
At the age of 42, she sings with the vulnerability of the delicate teenager who nearly became a Buddhist monk instead of a recording artist.
Woong San highlights a lineup of musicians who will perform at The Korea Times Spring Music Festival to be held on April 1 at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. She has previously performed at the annual event in 2007 and last year.
“I am looking forward to performing before my fans. I have performed at the concert before, so I believe there will be a lot of people returning to hear me sing. That’s special to me,” Woong San said in an interview with The Korea Times.
“I will sing the songs on my albums and also ‘Volare,’ the Gipsy Kings song. It is a song about optimism and hope and I think it goes well with the concept of a spring music festival.”
The singer-songwriter has garnered a strong following in Korea and Japan since releasing her first album in 2003. She has released six more albums since and has been one of the most diligent live performers in the Korean music scene.
Born Kim Eun-young, Woong San is currently using a name she acquired as a teenage apprentice monk at a Buddhist Temple in Danyang, North Chungcheong Province.
The name means “male mountain” -- a senior monk called her as such because he believed her life would have had less hardships had she been born a man.
“I was 17 at that time and was agonizing over whether to live the rest of my life as a monk or pursue music. I had a passion for Buddhism, so I just walked into that temple one day and shaved my head. Through two long stays at the temple, I was studying Buddhism diligently, but also practicing singing,” she said.
Woong San eventually left the temple and went on to study at Sangji University. She spent a couple of years as the vocalist of a campus rock band before falling in love with the music of Billie Holiday, which she now describes as a life-changing moment.
“Her deep, resonant voice was unforgettable. My passion turned toward jazz music from there,” she said.
Woong San began performing in clubs in Japan in 1998 as the fan base for jazz music is much deeper there. She broke through in Korea in 2003 after the release of her debut album, “Love Letters,” which garnered rapturous applause from critics and fans alike. “Yesterday,” a song from her third album released in 2007, remains one of the country’s best known contemporary jazz pieces.
Earlier this month, she won the sliver prize at Japan’s “Jazz Audio Disc Awards,” managed by the influential Japanese magazine “Jazz Critique,” for her recently-released seventh album, “I Love You.”
“I think it was a great moment in my career. I feel comfortable when performing in Japan as I have many longtime fans there,” she said.
“In Korea, I aim to be more than just a singer, but a ‘missionary’ of jazz helping to introduce the genre to a wider audience. The greatest thing about jazz is that it liberates and soothes emotions at the same time.”
The experimental Mostly Philharmonic Orchestra and opera singer and musical actress Kolleen Park are among the other musicians to be featured at the concert at the Sejong Center.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Grand Theater of the Sejong Center. Readers can apply for tickets on our website at www.ktimes.co.kr. For more information, call (02) 724-2359.