Tongyeong International Music Festival

From sleepy port to musical mecca: How Tongyeong became an Asian hub for contemporary music

As South Korea’s Tongyeong International Music Festival celebrates over two decades of extraordinary growth, SoHyun Kim, one of the country’s leading arts managers, speaks to Florian Riem about transforming a remote coastal town into a global musical destination—and why great music always finds its audience

Tongyeong has become a musical mecca over the past 20 years, especially for contemporary music. Once a sleepy port town at the tip of the South Korean peninsula, the city itself has also changed dramatically. When did you first visit Tongyeong?

I think it was in 2002, during the Korea-Japan FIFA World Cup. At the time, I was studying in the US and working for a small startup group during the summer. When Korea made it to the semifinals, we decided to celebrate and took a trip. I never imagined I would end up living there 20 years later!

What was the city like at the time?

First of all, it took a very, very long time to get there—six-and-a-half hours by car. I was convinced it would be my first and last trip. But when you arrive, you quickly realise how special Tongyeong is; it’s unlike anywhere else in Korea. There are over 500 islands within its city limits, and the views are simply stunning. It doesn’t take much to feel inspired.

The Tongyeong International Music Festival quickly gained recognition for its impressive roster of artists, even in its early years. How did you first become involved with the festival, and what challenges did you face in establishing its reputation?

The Tongyeong International Music Festival was founded in 2002, and by 2003 it had already attracted major artists like the Vienna Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta. After returning from the US, I began working on a project for the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair, where Korea was the Guest of Honour. One of the programmers was Sngkn Kim, a professor of traditional Korean music at Seoul National University and the founder of the Tongyeong International Music Festival. He invited me to help with the festival, so I returned to Tongyeong in 2006. Initially, I thought it would just be a temporary job, but the project, the atmosphere and the artists were all so impressive that I decided to stay.

It’s remarkable to look back at how the festival managed to attract such incredible talent in its early years, despite being created virtually from scratch and without major sponsors. For example, during the Frankfurt Book Fair activities, the Korean organising committee of the book fair invited Ensemble Modern to perform at Seoul Arts Centre. We seized this opportunity to bring them to Tongyeong as well, where they performed and held our first TIMF Academy. At that time, I was familiar with Isang Yun but knew little about composers like Heinz Holliger, Unsuk Chin or Heiner Goebbels. After that, I studied contemporary music closely and became more familiar with it.

This focus on contemporary music turned Tongyeong into a hub for Korean composers, their students and fans who became our most loyal audience. However, this niche focus also gave the festival a unique image that initially made it challenging to attract a broader “regular” audience. Things began to shift in 2012 when Alexander Liebreich joined us and established the Tongyeong Festival Orchestra, introducing new and diverse programmes.

It’s still extraordinary to think that people would spend four-and-a-half hours on a highway bus from Seoul to attend a festival without a proper concert hall or hotel—just to listen to contemporary music.

The venue itself was indeed problematic—it was more like a multi-purpose hall with only 850 seats. Zubin Mehta certainly wasn’t impressed! Yet, despite poor acoustics inside, the view outside was simply incredible. Our invited artists also made all the difference—we focused on bringing soloists who were already famous abroad but not yet well-known in Korea. Igor Levit, Martin Grubinger and Matt Haimovitz all became famous in Korea through our festival and helped shape our identity significantly. Additionally, we’ve had renowned composers-in-residence such as Tōru Takemitsu, Toshio Hosokawa, Beat Furrer, Salvatore Sciarrino and Peter Eötvös.

Looking back now, it’s amazing that all these artists came here—to a place with no airport or train station and no decent hotel (thankfully this has changed now). When I first started working here there wasn’t even one Western restaurant or coffee shop. International artists need their espressos and sparkling water—things that simply couldn’t be found anywhere back then.

It took some time, but eventually the city and its citizens began supporting you.

Yes. The locals were initially surprised to see so many visitors from other cities and overseas coming to our concerts. The festival coincides with cherry blossom season when Tongyeong becomes even more beautiful than usual; people soon realised something special was happening here. Interestingly enough, at one point the city decided to hold an international oyster festival at exactly the same time as our music festival, even though oyster season happens at a completely different time of year! Today we feel very much integrated into local life, and some of our staff members even come from local fishermen’s families.

In 2013, the festival experienced quite a turning point with Semele Walk.

Absolutely! Alexander Liebreich brought this production by Ludger Engels and Ensemble Kaleidoskop from Berlin. Before this event we had never seen anything like it: artists wearing designs by Vivienne Westwood; hair styling by an expert from Britain and make-up by an artist from Taiwan. It required extensive additional lighting equipment—and dozens of hair dryers—which caused a complete blackout right at the start of our open dress rehearsal! Our old hall really reached its limits that day.

But by then your new concert hall was already under construction.

Yes, and many people contributed towards making this happen, including several supportive city mayors and Seong Yawng Park, a great patron of the arts in Korea (nicknamed “Korea’s Esterházy”) who previously served as Chairman of Kumho Asiana Group. After the first edition of the festival in 2002 he declared publicly that we needed a concert hall. Unfortunately, he died in 2005, and the concert hall idea suffered a major setback.

At first we considered hiring a celebrated architect—the mayor even visited Los Angeles hoping Frank Gehry might design it. Ultimately, we proceeded without one due to budget constraints (US$ 50 million is modest compared to international standards). Still, in the end we had an impressive building housing two halls in a unique location—when you walk out of the concert hall lobby and onto our large terrace, the view over the ocean and islands is breathtaking. Even our dressing rooms have this view—you won’t find another place like this
anywhere else.

Are your programmes still all exclusive to Tongyeong?

In the past, we were very strict about exclusivity, but over time we’ve become a bit more confident and sometimes share artists and projects with other promoters such as Lotte Concert Hall or LG Arts Centre in Seoul. However, we always try to ensure that each programme has at least one feature or one work exclusive to Tongyeon