Episode 35: Interview with Seungjae Jung

Welcome to Clexical, the podcast dedicated to contemporary classical music! I’m your host, [Kweku Adusei-Poku]. Here you will listen to conversations with living contemporary composers about their work, their journey as musicians and their thoughts on the current new music scene. Join us as we explore and influence the vibrant world of contemporary classical music. To learn more about our work, please visit www.clexical.org. You can find videos of all the interviews we’ve done so far, the outreach programs we’ve done with schools and libraries, and our weekly blog posts discussing the current new music scene. Today’s interview will be conducted by Jinha Park. Composer Seung Jae Chung currently lives in Seoul, Korea, and teaches composition at Sangmyung University. He is also the president of ACL-Korea, the Korean section of the Asian Composers League. Through these roles, he works to promote Korean composers, create more opportunities for composers, and bring contemporary music to a wider audience. Chung draws inspiration from many different sources, including paintings, films, and moments from daily life. As a student, he was especially interested in visual art and sometimes transformed images and ideas from paintings into music. One of his works, for example, was inspired by Joan Miró's painting Flight of the Dragonfly in Front of the Sun, which he interpreted as depicting a dragonfly flying toward the sun and confronting its own death. He sought to express both the scene and its emotional meaning through music. More recently, he has become especially interested in regional folk songs that have been passed down in different parts of Korea. Many of these songs have been preserved within small villages and local communities, carrying distinctive melodies, rhythms, and emotional qualities unique to their regions. Chung has been collecting these melodies and exploring ways to incorporate their distinctive qualities into contemporary compositions. In the past, Chung approached composition much like an architect preparing a blueprint. Before writing the music, he carefully planned the structure of the entire work, decided what material would appear in each section, and calculated how long each part would last. His process has since become more flexible. He still establishes the overall form and direction of a piece, but while composing, he allows himself greater freedom to explore musical ideas and their deeper meaning. Rather than strictly following his original plan, he remains open to new possibilities that emerge during the creative process. Overall, I enjoyed listening to his piece called Arirang. I was awed by how the piece connected with the Korean traditional roots.