First winning the PAMS Choice at Performing Arts Market in Seoul with Play with us! in 2007, GongMyoung got reselected with Space Bamboo in 2011. Consisting of four members, or Sun-Il KANG (janggu: a hourglass-shaped double-headed drum and percussion instruments), Seung-Won PARK (piri: a cylindrical oboe with a bamboo body, taepyeongso: a conical oboe with a wooden body and metal bell, and guitar), Kyong-Keun SONG (daegeum: large and small bamboo flutes, sogeum: a small transverse bamboo flute and didgeridoo) and Yong-Ju LIM (percussion instruments), GongMyoung was first organized in 1997. In the early days, the group was dubbed an indie band of Korean traditional music, attesting to the numerous attempts of the members to graft traditional music with contemporary one. They feature natural themes like the moon, butterflies and bamboos in the work, and now are preparing for GongMyoung-like music pieces. We met with them for an interview and talked about their music and activities.

Q: You have attracted attention from various quarters, and different interviewers must have asked you the same. Please, one more time for our readers, explain how come you named yourself GongMyoung?

A: Seung-Won PARK ("PARK"): These days, not so many ask that question. Meaning "striking up" and "resonating brightly," we wished to strike the resonating chord in the minds of people and to brighten them up. That was why. Actually, the name was the title of a song we introduced at a regular concert of Chugye University for the Arts. Original four members of our team attended the school. It seems to represent our artistic goal, and we took it as our group''s name.





Q: This year''s PAMS Choice was Space Bamboo. It feels about nature. Musical structure seems to have changed. Play with us! of 2007 feels different from this. What has brought up this change?

A: Sun-Il KANG, ("KANG"): It''s tough to put it in a word or two. It may differ with each of us. Until 2007, I wanted to play happy with people. Now, I want to deliver some message and help people think about it. I do it through GongMyoung. I''ve found out that very message through nature, looking at the moon, butterflies and bamboos. People feel nature through visual media like TV and films. Or, sometimes they visit it to feel it directly. We wish to help them listen to it through our music, and our music will surely amplify the awe about nature and its value.

PARK: I am giving many thoughts about new music and new instruments. One day, I hit upon a documentary about bamboos. It taught me about the benefits bamboos give to us. They do not harm the environment. After three years of growth, they give benefits to people as wood. They used to be there always for us. One day, they seemed to vanish all of sudden. Like nature having drifted away from us. I wanted to melt the bamboo woods in music and to help people feel the woods in the music. Space Bamboo is about a day spent in the bamboo woods depicted in music by GongMyoung. We wished to reflect in our music the nature and Oriental emotions that we meet in the woods. Touring around the world, cities feel the same whether in Korea or outside it. But nature feels different from place to place. We may have been drawn to ever-changing nature and its attraction. That''s why, I guess, we got to sing about it.

Q: How do you create music through what process?

A: Kyong-Keun SONG ("SONG"): Other than youngest Yong-Ju LIM, all three of us got married at around the same time. We used to spend more time together before then. We sat up all night, practicing. Now, we have families. Still, we practice together 4-5 hours a day. To create Space Bamboo, we holed up ourselves in a cabin in Gokseong-gun of Jeollanam-do which is the southern tip of Korea. Bamboos surrounded the cabin. Absorbing the energy there, we set forth our feet and initialized instruments and song.

PARK: We all participate in creation. One of us proposes a motif, and we each work on the sound with instruments. We''ve spent so much time together, and it''s like we''re able to read each other''s mind and think similarly. What we talk about daily becomes our common topic, and we continue talking about the topic. Then, our music piece is completed.

KANG: We travel quite often, and spend much time in nature. Sometimes we hit the road on a whim. Other times, our shows themselves feel travels to us.

Q: You add performance to your music. Any reason for that?

A: PARK: In the early days, we intentionally added it. We thought it would bring us closer to audiences and fans. Now, it''s different. We express what we naturally feel necessary in performance.

On top of performance, we ourselves prepare and produce almost everything we put on stage. The video clip we will play during Space Bamboo is our own work.

SONG: During our early days, challenges and attempts faced us. But they had nothing to do with music. It was like wearing unfitting clothes. Rap songs, acting -- those things were like that. It was hard to digest. Now, after 15 years, I can digest it without difficulty.



Q: You''ve worked with professionals in other genres, say, director Tae-sook HAN and choreographer Eun-Me AHN. What lessons have you learned?

A: PARK: The Singaproe International Arts Festival watched the video of HAN''s Lady Macbeth  which had performed in 2000. Then, they invited GongMyoung. I took part in a Singaporean theatrical show A Woman in the Tree on the Hill as music director and actor. I lived with overseas artists for more than one month. During my stay there, I learned a lot about how they direct and work. It was quite an experience. And in 2000, I worked for a show of AHN, and the work was invited at the Fest with Pina in 2001. So, I went there with her. Again in 2005, I worked with her and took charge of music for Rough Cut performed at the LG Art Center. All these experiences have taught us a lot about what it means by opportunity and challenge.

SONG: What we stand for as GongMyoung today is the result of cooperation with other genres. It was a challenge to myself. It affected how we as GongMyoung express on stage, and how we should build our own color.

Q: Listening to your music, one can notice elements of Western music like melody. But what are the traditional grounds for GongMyoung, which is known as a band of traditional music?

A: KANG: Thanks for the title of tradition-based team. It seems quite uneasy to reconfigure and recreate from traditions. But we do not stick ourselves to it. Above all, we stick to the music we like, and we can and wish to challenge. Tradition rather works as a starting point. We progress from that point with traditional rhythm and melody.

LIM: Especially when we play traditional instruments, like janggu and buk(a barrel drum), we play by the traditional rules of playing them. We can''t just ignore them.

PARK: To approach more of the public, we use Western melody as well. But the breath of our music is long. Based on the traditional long breath, it plays on logical progression through to the end. In the terms of traditional music, it starts with opening, and moves onto the processes of closing and untying. It''s not only about music. Performance follows the same process. One of my friends lives in New York. He is a composer there. Listening to our music, he says, it contains repetitions a lot, smelling of Western feelings, though. However, he believes the repetitions throw before us something only musicians can express. Our music itself may not feel too much strange. Beneath the surface, we can''t move on without the underlying elements of the traditional music like breath and flow.

Q: What''s your plan in the future?

A: PARK: We plan to release a new music piece about sea in September. Next year, our 15th anniversary comes. We will put all pieces of our music on a single stage. We guess it will be six hours long. It sure will cost us a huge energy. We not only pitch in practice, but work out regularly together. It will take some time to get prepared. The show will be put on stage this coming fall or winner. It is a new challenge to all of us.