Friday 19 November 2010

Rach 3 Rocks at Sejong!

This is one of the nice things living in Seoul.  Accomplished and famous musicians are always visiting the city to let the locals hear their music. (And I'm not talking about Whitney Houston, who had a concert here last year where she left people disappointed and clamoring for refunds! She wasn't able to sing; I heard she just rapped her songs.)

Going back to the real musicians. 

I was talking, of course, about the real musicians such as Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, and of course, Mariah Carey. Ha-ha-ha!  Linkin Park and Beyonce, too! 


And last weekend, I was lucky to get the last remaining affordable seats to the concert of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta at the Sejong Arts Center.  Affordable, as in 70,000 Korean won! Because the next ticket price up was.... 280,000 won!  


Anyways, the headlined concert interested me because I was so interested to watch somebody play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 (popularly known as Rach 3), one of the most difficult piano pieces, to be played by Professor Paik Kun-Woo, a very accomplished, prize-winning Korean concert pianist.


And the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr. Mehta and Professor Paik's mastery of the ivory keys did not disappoint. He breezed through the difficult piece, tinkering with the grand piano's last keys at both ends while his shoulders moved with the tempo of the piece as if he was being one with the music itself.


I was totally blown away. Figuratively speaking, of course. Blown away from my 70,000 Korean won affordable seat. Ha-ha-ha!  Perhaps along with hundreds of listeners inside the Sejong Arts Center who applauded,whistled and screamed to praise Professor Paik, Korea's very own, after he struck the final 'very fortissimo' of chords of the concerto. He rocked the whole house with Rach 3!


'Rach 3' was the first part of the concert, which lasted about 45 minutes, and the second part, a Mahler symphony without the piano this time, lasted less than an hour; a concert totally worth the affordable 70,000 won ticket.


I hope the next concert that comes along would be affordable and worth it...

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