The 7^th Great Mountains Music Festival

“Create & recreate” 

PyeongChang, SOUTH KOREA – The Great Mountains Music Festival, now maturing into its seventh year the GMMFS will take place from July 23 to August 13, 2010 in Gangwon Province of South Korea. The Great Mountains Music Festival is dedicated to presenting innovate new compositions under a thematic umbrella that ties them with the traditional works. Under this year’s theme, Create & Recreate, the program will focus on the ever-continuing process I which the existing works become inspiration for new creations. This summer, the Opening Concert will include Lacrimae Beati commissioned by the Festival to composer Richard Danielpour. The title, translated as “Tears of the Blessed One”, refers to Mozart as the piece was inspired by a portion of his Requiem, the last eight bars of music that Mozart ever wrote.

Janá?ek’s string quartet, The Kreutzer Sonata, which will feature on August 6, brings our attention to the ever-evolving nature of creative processes. Janá?ek was inspired by the dramatic climax of Tolstoy’s novel, The Kreutzer Sonata, but Tolstoy was first inspired by Beethoven’s Sonata of the same name to write his book. Hence, from Beethoven to Tolstoy then finally to Janá?ek, the concert program explores the Festival’s theme Create & Recreate.  

Hyo Kang, the artistic director of the Festival explains this year’s theme, “Through the process of creation and re-creation, in which the past and present act as inspiration for the impending, we influence our contemporaries as well as the next generation thereby forging new history. Keeping in mind that such process occurs not only in music, but also in collective human experience.”

Artists such as Aldo Parisot, Myung-Wha Chung, and Jian Wang along with other “regulars” return to the Festival this summer. In addition, having been impressed by their first summer last year, Elmar Oliveira and Lawrence Dutton will return for the second time. As for the newcomers, Lise de la Salle, a twenty-two-year-old pianist who is taking the world by storm will make her Korea debut at the Festival while Kyung-Wha Chung a legendary violinist will join as a faculty member, making a pedagogical debut in Korea as well. Furthermore, this year’s concerts will take place in a newly-built concert hall at Alpensia Resort and GMMFS put together a Festival Orchestra for the first time, enabling wider repertoire compared to previous years.  

The Great Mountains Music Festival, a premier festival in Asia brings together some of the greatest musicians and talented music students from all over the world to the scenic Great Mountains region of Gangwon Province, showcasing over 55 concerts and programs. 

*festival information: http://www.gmmfs.com/2010/eng/