Seo Tae-ji(left) and Lee Ji-ah (Yonhap News)To the great shock of fans, musician Seo Tai-ji and actress Lee Ji-ah are in a divorce suit, Sports Seoul reported Thursday.Seo, the media-shy enfant terrible of Korean hard rock, is famous for leading a secretive life but the report that he is married shocked the nation via cyberspace.The report is all the more shocking because Lee created top headlines

INDIO, California ― As the U.K. folk-revival quartet Mumford & Sons, all of whom are in their early 20s, stared out on the 70,000 people or so gathered to watch their set at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival on Saturday night, they couldn’t help but remark on how much had changed for them. “In 2008, I was a punter sneaking in here for Rage Against the Machine,” one of the Mumfords’ string

American R&B singer-songwriter John Legend said he was happy to hold two concerts in Seoul on Tuesday and Wednesday. His visit to Korea is the first since he performed at the Olympic Hall in 2009.“The fans were incredible on my last visit to Seoul. I’m glad we’re doing two shows this time. It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Legend said in an email interview.“I’ll perform a mix of songs from all of my

Maestro Chung Myung-whun, music director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, said the Korean government should continually support the orchestra to help it advance to a world-class level.“If an orchestra wants to do better, it needs three things; the expertise of orchestra members, the expertise of the conductor and continuous support. In the history of Korean orchestras, none of them have really

Rain, a South Korean actor and singer, has been voted the most influential person in the world in an online poll.In a poll conducted by TIME magazine, Rain ranked first in the voting for this year’s most influential people.The 2011 TIME 100 poll closed on April 14 with Rain in the lead. Taiwan’s Jay Chou and Britain’s Susan Boyle took second and third place. Rain received the highest number of vot

 Exhibitions“Koo Bohnchang”: One of South Korea’s most renowned photographers, Koo Bohn-chang, is holding a solo exhibition at Kukje Gallery. Elements from his other series as well as his personal collections of eclectic objects are on display, giving the viewers a hint of Koo’s youth, attitudes toward photography and more. The exhibition runs through April 30 at Kukje Gallery in Sogyeok-dong, cen

Landing fresh from a performance at California’s Coachella music festival, Swedish indie pop band The Radio Dept. are to play their first ever Korean gig next week. The band, whose music was featured in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” are excited to play for their fans here, singer Johan Duncanson told The Korea Herald by phone from a recording space in Stockholm, in the midst of rehearsals fo

LOS ANGELES ― Daniel Catan, an opera composer and librettist whose works including “Il Postino” and “Florencia en el Amazonas” have been praised for their lyrical romanticism and humane generosity of spirit, died suddenly Saturday in Austin, Texas. He was 62.Catan’s death was announced by the Butler School of Music of the University of Texas, where he was a visiting artist. The cause has not been

Concert tour schedules of foreign music artists in Korea have been rocked by last month’s massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan and local concert organizers claim they are finding it difficult to retrieve their sudden losses.To the big disappointment of rock fans here, concert organizer 9 Entertainment recently said that Beady Eye, the U.K. group consisting of Liam Gallagher and other former mem

JYJ’s Kim Junsu was voted the best singer of all Korean idol group members, a local survey has shown.A local newspaper conducted the survey on ten vocal trainers to rank the Korean idol groups and their members based on how well they sing. The results showed 2AM, a four-member male vocal group, as the best. Big Bang took second place. Girl group Kara, who gained sensational popularity in Japan, we

U.S. singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles said she is looking forward to visiting Seoul to hold her first concert in Korea, as she is already familiar with Korean culture.Bareilles plans to showcase her latest songs and familiar songs by other artists at the Hongdae V-Hall in Seoul on May 14 at 7 p.m. “I know that Korean food is amazing and I heard a lot from people who traveled around Korea that the