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Memory for the Future: the Position and Meaning of Korean Culture in the Music of Isang Yun

Choi Ae-Kyung 1

1숙명여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Most of Yun’s music written for 36 years from 1958 to 1994—he left Korea in 1956, studied and settled in Europe in the 1970’s as an emigre artist—was taking form in the 1970’s cultural context of European modern music and geological, historical space of Europe. Korea, Germany, East Asia, and Western Europe have multiple meanings in Yun’s life and art. Especially memory of the social culture and tradition of Tongyoung, where he was born and raised, and Korea, where he was persecuted by the government, is the heart that has kept his identity as an artist alive. Furthermore, the oppression and suffering and protest he experienced directly or indirectly in the history of in and out of Korea profoundly affected his music, which emphasizes the social roles of music, and he elevated these three concepts into art through the aesthetic of memory. In this respect, the meaning and core of Korean society and traditional music in Yun’s works can be condensed into “Memory for the Future.” This study traverses the titles of Yun’s works, whose titles primarily include social, cultural relationships and meanings of the memory in Korean culture; thereby, this study focuses on the current meaning of Yun’s music.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2024 are currently being built.