“Oh! You are from The Hindu paper; I have seen it,” beams Ju-Hong Kim, the artistic director-percussionist-vocalist of Korean group Noreum Machi. His group’s first visit to Hyderabad was for the ‘Same Same But Different season 5 series’ (The concert was held at Shilpakala Vedika recently). Besides Noreum’s artistes, Howon Lee and Hyun-ju Oh (traditional percussionists and performers), Gyeongsik Kim (saenghwang and piri player), Hyeyeong Oh (gayageum player), the Indian artistes included dancer Astad Deboo, percussionist B C Manjunath, singer and flautist Varijashree Venugopal and percussionist, music director and composer Praveen D Rao. Korean artistes played percussion instrument like samaluri, and wind instruments like piri and saenghwang. They also introduced to the audience gayageum, a string and classical instrument.
Ju-Hong is in a poetic mood and calls Korea, the moon and India, the stars. “Their love and music is spread out like the sky.”
The group Noreum Machi (referring a ‘skilled performer that no one would dare to follow on stage’) was formed in ’93 and became popular for its elements of music and dance. In the five-member team, four sing and play percussion and Ju Hong plays the traditional folk instrument — an hour glass shaped drum called janggu. With more than 20-year experience, the team has been part of various projects, competitions and festivals. “The members have been to different countries to collaborate and perform with other musicians,” shares Ju-Hong adding the experience encouraged them to start a series. “We wanted this project to be an experience for music lovers; The idea led us to Same Same But Different (SSBD) series.” He explains the concept behind SSBD, “When different musicians share the stage, blend and perform together, they produce unique sounds.” The four editions of SSBD has collaborations between Korean artistes and artistes from Turkey, Australia, Japan and Germany. He says, “A few purists might not like to collaborate for the fear of art getting diluted but contemporary musicians want to create diverse music. Collaborations is one way of achieving it; Travelling to other countries and performing is a learning experience. We learn, adapt and experience their lifestyle and culture.”
Korean music is divided into two types — grand and aristocratic music expressing utopian idea and folk music conveying simple human emotions. Noreum Machi plays folk music. “Both forms have songs and dance but folk music has percussion also and uses traditional folk instruments and that is the main difference.”
Ju-Hong has an eye for talent and selects younger members for their artistic steak. Some youngsters started off as students in the music group and after graduation have even become its members. Speaking about the role of social media in promoting their music, he says, “Social media does help in promoting the event but it doesn’t always serve the purpose. We realised we get more people to our concerts by word of mouth.”
A collaborative SSBD series — six in Mangolia and percussion through voice are their future plans. “Like India’s thom thom thadigana thom, we plan to do a Korean ghum ghum tha,” adds Ju-Hong.
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