Park Ji-won is a writer for The Korea Times who has been covering a wide range of topics from Korea’s culture to its politics. An avid journalism enthusiast to the core, Ji-won brings a thoughtful and unique perspective to every topic she covers. On weekends, you'll often find her contemplating life’s purpose on a yoga mat — with a cup of quality tea in hand. A native Korean speaker by birth and fluent in English through her work, she went to college in Japan and is learning Chinese and French — hoping to add Polish, Russian and Thai to the mix.
INTERVIEW Korean American composer transforms daily life into music
By Park Ji-won
Kim Texu, a professor of composition and music theory poses during an interview with The Korea Times at Ode Port in Seoul, Dec. 8. Korea Times photo by Park Ji-won
By Park Ji-won
A fractal is a mathematical concept referring to a feedback loop pattern that repeats a replication process indefinitely. This kind of self-similar pattern can be seen in many things. For example, the Eiffel Tower has a fractal-esque structure and many examples of approximate fractal structures can be found in nature, for example in fernbrake ― a key ingredient in well-known Korean dish bibimbap. The sci-fi fiction novel “Jurassic Park” also referenced the concept heavily.
While not everyone possesses deep knowledge of fractals, artists like Kim Texu, a professor of composition and music theory at San Diego State University, combines the knowledge with art forms. The Korean American composer applied the concept to a piece entitled “Frattalissimo!!” in 2012 which was first played by the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music Festival the same year.
“I introduced fractals into music to show that the repeat of one idea could create a certain consistency and end up sharing the same vision. Fractals can be applied to rhythms, melodies, dynamics or tempo,” Kim said during an interview with The Korea Times at Ode Port in Seoul, Dec. 8. “For example, I arbitrarily combined a short note with two long notes, which is the motif of the song, and created the same pattern with other musical elements. I used many chords, which are originated from one chord so that listeners could listen to the similar harmony throughout the entire music … There is no specific way to enjoy the music but audiences may sense a certain pattern or combinations of instruments and musical elements.”
He visited Seoul to film a video of the seven-minute piece played by various instruments such as clarinet, xylophone, piano and cello, which will be released on YouTube on Jan. 4 as part of a project by the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity which aims to introduce science through musical forms.
Many might find it strange to see a composer adopting a mathematical concept, but the combination of music and science was all relevant to Kim. He came up with the musical idea naturally because he is well aware of the concept as a student of science, having won a silver medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad in 1998 when he was a teenager and majoring in chemistry at Seoul National University, one of Korea's top universities, before changing his path to music.
Fernbrake, or gosari in Korean / gettyimagesbank
He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry and was going to continue his career as a scientist because he was good at it. But having actively performed as a member of a Contemporary Christian Music group at the university and being passionate about music, he decided to bet on himself to major in music if he was accepted as a transfer student.
“I thought I could change my major into statistics, comparative linguistics or music. In Korea, people may think those subjects belong to liberal arts. For me, those are scientific. They need some examination of structures and analysis (like chemistry) … So it was so natural for me to change my major into music. I applied for a transition into the composition department in the university. If I failed, I was going to continue to work on chemistry. But luckily I was accepted and became a third-year student with the music department and studied avant-garde modern composition there.”
Studying in Europe, which is the homeland for classical music, was an option for him, but he decided to study in the U.S. because he thought the country was the best place to learn some insights over the localization of imported music, which could be applied to Korea as well.
“(While learning classics in Korea), I thought Korea cannot be the center of classical music because I thought Europe would be busy with preserving tradition. But the U.S. had to localize European classical music. So if I go to the U.S., I assumed that I would get some insights about the localization which could be applied to Korea in the future.”
He is known for writing music inspired by his personal experiences, which is not very common in Western society until recently, according to him, as it had been making stage music. However, adopting sources from ordinary life is not something new for him as a Korean. He is used to traditional Korean music, in which it is not uncommon to be inspired by the voices of ordinary people and life in the form of madangnori, Korean outdoor performances.
“Being inspired by personal experiences is a trend now (in the Western music scene.) Not only am I naturally sensitive to sounds, but it was so natural for me as a Korean and Asian to come up with music inspired by my experiences, as I already know the features of madangnori in Korea. From the Asian perspective, music is not only being played in a concert hall.”
Out of some 60 compositions, some of them are inspired by his memories from Korea. “Zzan!!” (2020) is the sound of “cheers” in Korean. “Kookminhakgyo Fantasy” (2018) features sampled recordings of the announcement and music used during a morning gathering in Korean elementary schools. In “Chopsalteok” (2012), or chewy rice cake, he was inspired by lines from rice cake sellers. Not only being inspired by his memories of Korea, he is also concurrently working on using traditional Korean instruments and traditional source material in his works, as seen with “Dub-Sanjo” (2017).
Kim Texu conducts an ensemble at Ode Port, Seoul, Dec. 8. Courtesy of stageone
Thanks to their uniqueness and excellence, he has been winning international awards including the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Copland House, and SCI/ASCAP Commission Competition, while his works have been performed by prestigious orchestras such as New York Philharmonic, Oregon Symphony, National Orchestra of Korea and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.
It sounds very easy to adopt ideas from daily life, but developing them into musical form takes effort and time.
“I get ideas very easily. But it takes time and effort to form the basic idea of the music. For example, for my piece 'Bounce!!,' the sound of the basketball, I start to brainstorm about the nature of its function like its meaning in life and texture. If I didn't think about it, the music would turn out to be too simple. It takes almost a year to establish the basic concept while doing other things. And then it takes about three months to write scores and another three months to edit it.”
He is poised to continue to introduce his “Koreanness” into his music. He also runs projects for Korean and Korean American composers in the U.S, archiving a list of them and introducing them to musical events.
“You can easily find the genealogy of Chinese composers in the U.S. But I couldn't find the Korean one in the Korean community. So I just started to archive Korean composers on my own. I thought people would think I am too nosy, but many loved my idea and I continued going. We did hold lectures with the Korean American Cultural Foundation of Greater Boston and will continue to run other fun projects in the future with the members.”