Soh-Hyun Park Altino: Traditional Korean Sanjo on the Violin

Coinciding with the exhibition Material and Immaterial in Korean Modern and Contemporary Art, please join us for a lunchtime lecture and concert as Soh-Hyun Park Altino discusses and performs the world premiere of the violin version of The Long Sanjo. This event is free, and no reservation is required.

Sanjo is a genre of Korean traditional folk music composed for a solo melodic instrument, such as the zither (kayagum) or flute (taegŭm), accompanied by the changgu, an hourglass-shaped drum. Sanjo consists of several movements built on Korean rhythmic patterns known as changdan that increase speed as they progress. The solo instrument plays dramatic and expressive melodic phrases that draw from the inflections of spoken Korean language that are also characteristic of p’ansori, a dramatic and narrative style of Korean singing.

Although a native of Korea, Soh-Hyun first encountered traditional Korean music in 2019 while investigating distinctive musical elements in Sanjo for Violin and Piano (1955) by La Un-Yung (1922–1993), her maternal grandfather. Since then, she has pursued a new line of interpreting traditional ajaeng sanjo on the Western violin. In addition to studying extensively with traditional musicians in Korea, she has trained in the Kim Ilgu school of ajaeng sanjo with composer-performer Kim Ilgu, Holder of National Important Intangible Cultural Property.

Soh-Hyun came to the US at age 16 to pursue better musical educational opportunities and earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and the doctor of musical arts degrees in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein. Highly regarded as a gifted teacher and a versatile performer of solo and chamber music, Soh-Hyun taught at the University of Memphis and the University of Wisconsin–Madison prior to her current appointment as associate professor of music at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Today’s lecture and world premiere are made possible by the 2023 Korean Studies grant of the Academy of Korean Studies and the Faculty Global Research Award of Wheaton College.