Manbang Yi

Manbang Yi
Manbang Yi - scan of digital pic, fot Ivonna Nowicka.jpg Manbang Yi - scan of digital pic, fot Ivonna Nowicka.jpg Manbang Yi in Warsaw in 1992, fot. Ivonna Nowicka
Native name	Hangul: 이만방
Born	Manbang Yi (1945-12-01)1 December 1945 Geochang, South Korea
🏳️ Nationality	South Korean
🏫 Education	Yonsei University Hochschule für Musik Freiburg
💼 Occupation	Composer Academic teacher
Notable work	string trio Rhak (1980)
🏅 Awards	International Society for Contemporary Music Asian Composers League

Manbang Yi (Hangul: 이만방; 1 December 1945 in Geochang) is a South Korean composer and academic composition teacher. He composes orchestral works and chamber music which combines European classical music with Korean musical tradition. Yi is regarded as one of the main contemporary composers of Korea. He received, among others, the International Society for Contemporary Music Prize several times and the Asian Composers League twice.

Life

Manbang Yi was born on 1 December 1945 in Geochang, Gyeongnam. He graduated from the Geochang High School. He studied composition at the Department of Composition of Yonsei University's College of Music with Un-Yeung La (1964–1969), receiving his Bachelor's degree. His "Wind Quintet" premiered at the National Theater in Seoul in 1969.

In the years 1970-73 he had a break in his studies due to military service. After completing the service he returned to the Yonsei University for graduate studies in composition with Young-Ja Lee (1975–1977). He defended his master thesis A Study on Counterpoint Techniques in Contemporary Music at Yonsei University in 1976.

From 1973 to 1975 he worked as music teacher at the Yesan High School and at the Gyeongsin High School.

In 1975 he got acquainted with composer Kang Sukhi and took private lessons with him in 1975-77. The meeting with Sukhi Kang had a deep influence on Yi's musical interest and style. Until then Yi used to follow European classical and contemporary music. One of his favorite composers was Brahms. Kang opened Yi's eyes to the value of local, Korean tradition, and this realisation has remained with Yi ever since, inspiring him to combine the local with the European, both stylewise and instrumentwise. Through Kang, Yi got acquainted with the music of another Korean composer Isang Yun, who was doing precisely this in his music. Throughout his career Yi has been more and more fascinated by Korean traditional music.

Isang Yun was based in West Germany and Kang had studied there. Following their footsteps, Yi also went to Germany to study at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg in 1978–1983 with, among others, Klaus Huber.

Yi's string quartet "Rhak" was premiered at the ISCM Festival in Zürich in 1980. In the same year the piece became a success at Die Internationalen Ferienkursen für Neue Musik (International Summer Courses for Contemporary Music) in Darmstadt.

In 1983 Yi started teaching composition at the College of Music of Sookmyung Women's University. In the same year, his "Mudang" (Shaman) was premiered at the 8th Korea Music Festival (hosted by the Korea Culture and Arts Promotion Agency).

In September 1992 he was a lecturer at the 12th Summer Courses for Young Composers organised by the Polish Society for Contemporary Music in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland.

Around the mid-1990s Yi was diagnosed with stomach cancer and had stomach surgery. This period of uncertainty and thoughts of death was reflected in his music.

Yi retired from his academic post at the Sookmyung Women's University in 2011.

Yi has been the head of the Saemadang (Forum for Contemporary Music) in Seoul since 1989 and president of the Korean Composer’s Association Inc. since 2005, vice-president of the Korean branch of the International Contemporary Music Association (ISCM), the Korea Chairperson of the 2004 Berlin Korean Music Week and member of the committee for the 2005 Art of the Year Award.

Works

Selection

• 1979 Flow (Hangul: 흐름) - for solo flute
• 1980 Rhak (Rock) (Hangul: 락) - string trio
• 1980/81 Mudang (Shaman) (Hangul: 무당) - for Korean traditional orchestra and voice
• 1981 Trio (Hangul: 삼중주) - for guitar, viola and percussion
• 1982 Erinnerung (Reminiscence) Hangul: 회상) - for chamber orchestra
• 1984 Sanjo (Hangul: 산조) - for large orchestra
• 1985 Confession (Hangul: 고백) - for violin, cello, clarinet, piano, two percussionists (musical testimony to the Gwangju Uprising of May 18-27, 1980)
• 1986/87 String Quartet No. 1 (Hangul: 현악 4중주 제1번)
• 1989 String Quartet No. 2 - Amitayus Buddha (Hangul: 현악 4중주 제2번)
• 1994 Ajaeng Concerto (Hangul: 아쟁 협주곡) - for the ajaeng zither and orchestra (first encounter between traditional and Western instruments)
• 1994 Poem (Hangul: 연작시) - music for lyrical poetry
• 1994 Spiritual (Hangul: 영가) - for violin and percussion
• 1996 Sight (Hangul: 시선) - for orchestra
• 1997 Evil (Hangul: 악 or 樂) - for haegeum fiddle and janggu drum
• 1997 Sori (Hangul: 소리) - for solo marimba
• 2003 Sad Song (Hangul: 슬픈 노래) - for clarinet ensemble
• 2003 Trioletto (Hangul: 삼중주) - for piano, clarinet and violin
• 2005 String Quartet No. 3 (Hangul: 현악 4중주 제3번) - for Korean traditional orchestra and voice
• 2007 Ye-Ak (Hangul: 예•악) - for Korean orchestra
• 2008 Yul (Hangul: 율 or 律) - for Korean orchestra
• 2014 From Where to Where (Hangul: 어디에서 어디로) - for orchestra
• Akyang I - for female voice, sogeum (small bamboo transverse flute), daegeum (large bamboo transverse flute), geomungo (traditional Korean plucked zither), janggu (slim waist drum) etc.
• The Song we Sing Together (Hangul: 우리가 함께 부르는 노래) - for clarinet, violin, cello and piano

Publications

(in Korean)

• "The Xocial Role of Culture - How to Understand Music." Music and Reality 13 (1997): 190-211.
• "A Number of Problems in Music Policy and Suggestions for Improvement." Music and Reality Vol. 14 (1997): 94-111.
• "Prospects and Problems of the Korean Music Industry - Diagnosing the Korean Music Industry on the 50th Anniversary of Liberation and some Advice for the 21st Century -." Music and Reality 12 (1996): 167-208.
• "The Influence of Korean Traditional Music in Creative Works - Music as the center." Sookmyung Women's University Proceedings Vol. 34 (1993): 347-406.
• "Isang Yun, his Work and the World." Music Education Vol. 40 (1989. 4): 106-113.
• "Music and Science - Mathematical Thinking and Logic are Required." Space Vol. 21 No. 7 (Aug. 1986): 86-105.
• "What is Music?" The Hankook Ilbo, October 21, 1984, p. 5.
• "Analysis of String Quartet No. 2 (Amita) - The Influence of Korean Traditional Music with Focus on the First Movement." Gukakwon Dissertations No. 9 (1996): 67-99.

Awards

Yi won several prizes at national and international music festivals such as:

• the Music Prize at the 7th Seoul Creative Music Festival (formerly Seoul Music Festival), 1975
• the ISCM Music Festival in 1987, 1988, 1991, 1996
• the Asian Composers League in 1990 and 1994
• winner the World Music Festival, Hong Kong in 1988 for Mudang (The Shaman) for orchestra
• World Music Festival Prize, Zürich, Switzerland, in 1991 for String Quartet No.2 Amitayus Buddha
• the Seoul Culture Award
• the Korean Composer Award
• the Korean Music Award

Books about Yi

From January 2007 until January 2015, thirty-two in-depth interviews with Yi were conducted by Choi Ae-kyung. These were published in 2015 as "Conversation with Composer Manbang Yi. From Where to Where?" by Yesol Publishing as the second book in the 'Korean Composer Research Series'. The book has 704 pages and 7 chapters that discuss Yi's life and work chronologically, including his thoughts and insights on teaching music, on the cultural situation of contemporary Korea facing an imposing presence of Western culture, on identity, on the process of composing musing and first and foremost, on the spell traditional Korean music has over Yi.

As the book covers a lifespan of eight years, it reflects the evolution and change in the composer's ideas.

External links

• Short interview "Author Interviews. From Where to Where?" on the occasion on the publishing of "Conversations with Manbang Yi", published 08.2015. (ko.)
• Short biography and list of works of Manbang Yi. (ko.)
• Pictures of Manbang Yi by Kim Moongi in the February issue of the Korean magazine Music. (ko.)
• Audio recording and score of part 1 of Serial Poetry (1994) for clarinet solo by Manbang Yi on YouTube.
• Video of orchestral performance of From Where to Where (2014) by Manbang Yi on YouTube.

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