Season of trouble for Seoul Philharmonic

Last season, things couldn’t have looked better for the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

The ensemble, with the world-famous Chung Myung-whun as its director, was setting the standard of orchestral music in Korea, with a long-term recording contract, unrivaled popularity at home and a rising artistic profile overseas.

In the summer, it debuted at the prestigious BBC Proms in London, becoming the first Korean orchestra to do so, with a tour of seven U.S. cities, scheduled for April this year, expected to be a chance to show off its elevated status.

A little more than six months later, Seoul Philharmonic is now in grave trouble.

It announced Friday that the planned tour of the U.S. would not happen due to financial difficulties.

“The municipal council didn’t approve the budget (for the tour) and we had difficulty in securing private sponsorship deals,” an official at the SPO said.

The orchestra had requested 1 billion won ($883,000) for travel and other expenses. The April 14-24 tour was to take the SPO to seven concert halls in the U.S., including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Nearly 65 percent of all concert tickets were already sold.

For many observers and SPO fans, the news was worrisome and saddening, but certainly not unexpected.

For months, the orchestra has been mired in trouble ― all concerning local and non-musical matters.

The SPO president’s office remains vacant since the scandalous departure in December of Park Hyun-jung whose alleged misconduct, including sexual harassment of staff, was revealed by her own staff to the media. The boss is now seeking to identify who conspired against her, which led to an unprecedented police raid of the orchestra’s office on March 11.

Chung has been in no position to step up for fund-raising, with his future with the ensemble unclear.

The conductor, whose three-year contract with the SPO expired late last year and is now on a one-year extended stay, has been in the hot seat over his salary level and alleged misuse of air tickets and other perks. A local group even filed a complaint with the police, asking the authorities to investigate him over embezzlement.

Chung, speaking to journalists earlier this year, cited continued financial support to the SPO as the only precondition for the renewal of his contract with the ensemble, which he has been with since 2006.

“It will be a big shame internationally if you cancel the tour,” Chung said of the U.S. tour in January.

“Why tour overseas, spending so much money? It’s like the Olympic Games in sports. We send our finest athletes to those events, even though we don’t expect them to win medals. Experiencing global events makes a difference,” he said.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)