Redemptive Mahler 2 from Myung-whun Chung in Seoul

Myung-whun Chung and the KBS Symphony Orchestra

Myung-whun Chung conducts Mahler's Resurrection Symphony

By SangKwon Lee, 22 February 2025

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“emerged with an otherworldly sense of distance that momentarily halted time”

Reviewed at Seoul Arts Center: Concert Hall, Seoul on 21 February 2025

Mahler, Symphony no. 2 in C minor "Resurrection"

Sumi Hwang, Soprano

Danbi Lee, Contralto

Goyang Civic Choir

Anyang Civic Choir

Seoul Motet Choir

KBS Symphony Orchestra

Myung-whun Chung, Conductor

Myung‑whun Chung launches a new KBS Symphony chapter in Seoul

SangKwon Lee, 16th January

In Myung-whun Chung’s first concert as the orchestra’s tenth Music Director, Leonidas Kavakos’ account of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is built on exposure rather than varnish.

***11

Mao Fujita’s Mozart and Myung‑whun Chung’s Fantastique in Seoul

SangKwon Lee, 29th August

An evening at the Seoul Arts Center in which clarity matters as much as volume and the most telling virtuosity comes from a refusal to grandstand.

****1

Markus Stenz conducts three monumental 20th-century scores in Seoul

SangKwon Lee, 18th July

Propulsive Prokofiev from pianist Dmitry Shishkin between Ravel’s hypnotic minimalism and Schoenberg’s late-Romantic complexity.

****1

A night of bold strokes: Orozco-Estrada and Josefowicz in Seoul

SangKwon Lee, 22nd May

By the close of the performance, one sensed that the audience’s exhilaration stemmed less from polished execution and more from a shared immersion in the music’s dramatic arc—elements that lingered as the defining memory of this eventful evening.

****1

Unity in Sound: Myung-whun Chung leads KBS and Tokyo Phil in Mahler 1

SangKwon Lee, 3rd March

Like the grainy intensity of a high-contrast black-and-white photograph, these rugged edges accentuated Mahler’s expressive extremes, reaffirming the conductor’s innate flair for crafting a grand aesthetic narrative within the symphony’s expansive architecture.

****1

Jaap van Zweden tests Beethoven 9 in Seoul

SangKwon Lee, 18th December

At the Seoul Arts Center, Jaap van Zweden treats Beethoven’s disputed metronome marks less as provocation than instruction, trading bloom for voltage in a driven Beethoven Ninth Symphony.

**111

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SangKwon Lee

SangKwon Lee is a Seoul-based classical music critic whose writing focuses on concert performances and recordings. A contributor to Gramophone and a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, he covers the classical music scene in Korea and internationally.

Redemptive Mahler 2 from Myung-whun Chung and the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul