Pianists jump to ‘performance frontline’ in untact era

Pianists Sunwoo Ye-kwon and Lim Dong-hyek have become guides for online classical music experience accelerated by the prolonged COVID-19 crisis. Sunwoo will lead a virtual reality (VR) tour at Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul while Lim is featured in the multi-view and multi-audio video that allow viewers to enjoy a performance by Lim and the Korean Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Chung Chi-yong with various visual and acoustic perspectives.

Sunwoo’s VR content titled “Art presented by Lotte Concert Hall” is a VR stage tour. In the first part of the video, Sunwoo finds out about the architectural style and characteristics of the concert hall from manager Kim Si-jin and learns about a pipe organ facing an audience with organist Park Joon-ho. Then, he moves to a piano storage room to find out how instruments are stored in constant temperature and humidity conditions and demonstrate how a pianist would pick a piano.

In the second part of the video, a piano is set up on a stage, followed by Sunwoo’s performance of Piano Sonata No. 10 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and “Turkish March” arranged by Arcadi Volodos. The service will be offered for free to LG Uplus’ U+VR application users, as well as at Lotte Concert Hall’s lobby photo wall on December 30 and 31 for the concert hall’s year-end concerts.

“On:Classic Korean Symphony Orchestra X Lim Dong-hyek” showcases the orchestra and pianist’s performance captured with 11 cameras and 40 microphones to allow a multi-view and multi-audio experience. It offers seven views – that of the director, conductor, pianist, and string and pipe music parts, and experts. From the tip of the conductor to expressions on the pianist and the shaking surface of the timpani, intimate images that are hard to grasp even at a live performance were captured. Screen-split to simultaneously watch desired views and zoom-in up to four times are also available.

The multi-audio feature also offers a completely new experience. Users can experience sounds from the different perspectives of the conductor, the audience, or a string or pipe instrument player. Tonmeister Choi Jin supervised audio. Songs featured in the video include Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Symphony No. 1 and Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” The performance reenacts the concert that was to be held 220 years ago by Beethoven at Burgtheater in Vienna but fell through due to the delayed completion of a concerto.


gustav@donga.com