About the Piece

When receiving the commission of recreation of the America the beautiful, I was in agony because I tend to write music that is not gravitated to any direct regional or national scent. After a long thought, I came up with an idea that this piece of music which is honorable for American people could come across quite differently for other people evoking all sorts of different emotions and thoughts when listening to it. I tried to imagine those emotions from outsiders view at the same time encrypting the tune in the music therefore both perspectives, or multiple perspectives can be embedded together representing the harmony of all.

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About Jaehyuck Choi

Jaehyuck Choi, the 1st prize winner of the 72em Concours de Geneve 2017 in composition, is the music director of the ensemble blank, the Korea’s leading contemporary music ensemble founded by himself. Known as one of today’s most prominent composers of his generation, Mr. Choi will have several works premiered in 2020/21 season, his Clarinet Concerto Nocturne III ensemble version, will be performed by Jerome Comte (cl.) and the Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Matthias Pintscher; and the same work’s orchestra version will be performed by the Budapest Concerto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Eötvös in May (clarinetist TBA). Also, his new work for string quartet will be premiered by the Parker Quartet in July at the Banff Music Festival as a guest commissioned composer.

Apart from his works being premiered in others' hands, he will work closely with the ensemble blank in 2020/21 season conducting the works of Grisey, Ligeti, Furrer, Lachenmann, Ives, Vivaldi, and Bach in the concert venues in Korea including the Seoul Arts Center, Daegu Concert House, and the Daejeon Arts Center.

2018-2020 seasons were busy for Jaehyuck with several significant debuts as a conductor working with: London Symphony Orchestra joint with the Orchestra of the Lucerne Festival Academy sharing the podium with Sir Simon Rattle and Duncan Ward conducting Stockhausen’s Gruppen in Lucerne Festival; and one of the leading Korean orchestra, the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra conducting works by Gounod, Wagner, Berlioz, and Liszt; and the joint ensemble of the Laureates of the Concours de Genève conducting a work by Reich at the Victoria Hall in Geneva. He was also appointed as the 2018 Menuhin International Violin Competition's commissioned composer.

His works praised as “…much sense of expressivity, color, movement, motion, and a beautiful way of how to display energy” by Matthias Pintscher, Jaehyuck Choi (b.1994) began his musical training in composition and conducting since when he was 14 years old attending Walnut Hill School for the Arts and New England Concservatory’s preparatory school in Boston studying with Whitman Brown (2009-13). Soon after, Mr. Choi studied at The Juilliard School in New York briefly with Samuel Adler (2013-14), and then with Matthis Pintscher (2014-19) from Bachelor of Music program until the end of the Master of Music program. Mr. Choi has also studied with Unsuk Chin (2011-17) through Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra’s educational platform as well as with Péter Eötvös at his conducting and composition masterclasses (2013-2020). Currently Mr. Choi is based in Berlin for his further studies at the Barenboim-Said Akademie under the instruction of Jörg Widmann (2020~).

Jaehyuck Choi is an artist of the Credia Starship exclusive in South Korea (composer-conductor) and is an artist of the Mecury Classic Label of the Universal Music Korea. The ensemble blank, which he serves as music director and conductor, is in partnership with WCN KOREA.

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