The National Orchestra of Korea, resident company of the National Theater of Korea, will present its first collaborative performance with guitarist and film score composer Lee Byung-woo.
The orchestra’s orchestral series IV concert, “Lee Byung-woo and the National Orchestra of Korea,” will take place on June 5 at 7:30 p.m. at Haeoreum Grand Theater. The performance reimagines Lee’s cinematic music world through the rich tonal textures of Korean traditional orchestra.
Composer Lee Byung-woo. Photo by National Orchestra of Korea.
It marks the orchestra’s first major project centered around a master musician from another genre since 2019’s “Yang Bang-ean and the National Orchestra of Korea – Into the Light.” The commissioned premiere work “Arirang Road – Diaspora” later became one of the ensemble’s signature repertoire pieces.
Founded in 1995, the National Orchestra of Korea has spent more than three decades expanding contemporary gugak orchestral music and broadening public accessibility to traditional Korean sound. Its long-running brunch series “Music Concert at Noon” has continued for 18 years, while annual winter and New Year concerts have collaborated with artists from pop, musical theater, and crossover music.
The orchestra has also expanded beyond conventional concert formats. Productions such as “Ecstasy,” which combined gugak with media art, “Music Odyssey: Cheonha Jeil Sang,” inspired by MMORPG gaming culture, “Absence,” featuring a humanoid robot conductor, and “Origin of the Orchestra,” which explored VR and performance art, pushed the boundaries of Korean traditional orchestra into new territory.
Lee Byung-woo has created some of the most recognizable musical moments in Korean cinema. His filmography includes blockbuster titles such as Ode to My Father, Haeundae, The Host, and The King and the Clown, alongside works including A Tale of Two Sisters, Untold Scandal, The Face Reader, Mother, and All for Love. Across more than 30 films, his music deepened emotional tension and atmosphere, functioning as an additional layer of storytelling within the cinematic frame.
Lee has received numerous honors, including Best Music awards at the inaugural Korea Film Awards and the 27th Blue Dragon Film Awards. In 2013, he also served as artistic director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the PyeongChang Special Olympics World Winter Games.
Having played guitar since the age of 11, Lee developed his own musical language across classical, acoustic, and electric guitar styles. His albums “Which Day I” and “Which Day II” were ranked fourth and eleventh respectively on Korea’s list of the 100 greatest pop albums. Since 1989, he has released five solo guitar albums and earned praise as “a musician who expresses philosophy through guitar.”
His career has also extended into songwriting, arranging, and producing. Lee participated in singer Yang Hee-eun’s 20th anniversary album “Yang Hee-eun 1991,” contributing songs including “About Love and Loneliness” and “Autumn Morning.” The performance will explore how his musical sensibilities spanning rock, ballad, jazz, pop, and blues transform within the interpretation of gugak orchestra.
The program opens with music from television dramas and documentaries. Selections from the drama Painter of the Wind, including “Dohwaseo,” “Longing,” and “Ink,” will be reinterpreted through expanded orchestral arrangements inspired by the world of painters Kim Hong-do and Shin Yun-bok. Music from MBC’s documentary series “Yellow River” will also appear on stage, evoking vast natural landscapes and lyrical emotion.
The film music section features some of Lee’s most iconic OST works reimagined through gugak orchestration. Pieces include “Morning in the Garden” from Untold Scandal, “Dreaming Clowns” and “Half Empty Sky” from The King and the Clown, “Mindscape” from The Face Reader, and “Us – Prologue” from All for Love.
From A Tale of Two Sisters, “Lullaby” and “Irreversible Steps” will be performed, carrying hidden anxiety and sorrow beneath restrained melodies. The Host contributes “Hyun-seo” and “Hymn of the Han River,” reviving desperation and spatial memory through the expansive sound of traditional orchestra. “Father, My Father” from Ode to My Father reflects generational memory and family narrative.
Arrangements are handled by Son Da-hye, Hong Min-woong, and Kim Ji-ho. Rather than simply transferring familiar OST melodies onto Korean instruments, the project reconstructs the breathing patterns and textures of daegeum, piri, haegeum, ajaeng, gayageum, geomungo, and percussion into entirely new orchestral structures.
The concert concludes with a newly commissioned work composed by Lee specifically for the National Orchestra of Korea, titled “The Unknown between Us,” translated in Korean as “Each One’s Perspective.” Lee himself will appear on stage as guitar soloist. The piece combines traditional orchestra with guitar and electronic instruments, creating tension between natural resonance and unfamiliar electronic textures.
“The Unknown between Us” explores how more than 70 musicians, each with distinct voices and approaches, build a single musical work together. Just as billions of people around the world live with different perspectives, the performers within the orchestra also hold their own positions. Rather than erasing differences, the composition transforms tension and coexistence into music.
Lee said, “Until the very moment the performance goes on stage, I will do my best to create a work without regret. I hope audiences can experience how sounds that may initially feel incompatible eventually come together in harmony.”
The concert will be conducted by Kim Yoo-won, who studied conducting at Seoul National University, the Mozarteum University Salzburg, and the Curtis Institute of Music. He became the first Korean recipient of the Robert Spano Conductor Prize at the Aspen Music Festival in 2014 and the first Korean winner of the Princess Astrid International Music Competition in Trondheim, Norway, in 2018.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
* This article was manually prepared as a translated piece and later proofread and reviewed with the assistance of AI.
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