Orchestra to hold concert near DMZ

The Lindenbaum Festival Orchestra will hold a peace-promoting concert at Camp Greaves, a former military base in the northernmost area of South Korea, just 2 kilometers from the Demilitarized Zone, in collaboration with members from the Yale Symphony Orchestra and young musicians from around the globe.

Led by violinist and artistic director Won Hyung-joon, the festival orchestra is a project orchestra formed in 2009 with hopes to create a joint South-North orchestra. It holds a concert at the camp every year. 

The inspiration for the annual concert came from Daniel Barenboim’s Israeli-Arab East West Divan Orchestra, the artistic director said.

Since the beginning, the Lindenbaum Festival Orchestra has made efforts to form a joint inter-Korean orchestra but has been unsuccessful due to tensions on the peninsula.

The weeklong festival will start Sunday and runs through Aug. 12.

On Aug. 12, members of the festival orchestra will perform at Camp Greaves.

Conductor and music director of the YSO Toshiyuki Shimada will lead the festival orchestra’s DMZ concert program. Antonin Leopold Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor “From the New World,” as well as Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide,” will be performed in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the late composer who spoke out ardently against war and for peace.

The program also includes “Fence-a-Dance,” a symphony by Tod Machove, a professor of music and media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab

Pianist Eva Virsik will have a solo recital Tuesday at Tri-Bowl in Incheon. On Aug. 10, Tunisian violinist Yasmine Azaiez will perform “The Tale of Longing: Arirang,” the violinist’s variation on the Korean traditional folk song, together with artistic director Won and other young performers from around the world.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)