-Music can serve as a good connection ring for diplomacy
Conductor Gum Nan-se’s appointmnet as Slovakia Honorary Consul
in Seoul, Korea
shows that music can serve as a good connection ring for diplomacy.
Actually in September 2015, Gum was also appointed as the
Principal Guest Conductor of Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
and Gum was reported to have discussed regarding exchanges
with Korea when Slovak Prime Minister came to Korea two years ago.
Moreover, the 2018 Visegrad Music Festival will take place in
several cities such as Seoul, Daegu and Busan on Oct. next year
to bolster cultural exchanges with Czech, Slovakia, Poland and
Hungary 4 countries where conductor Gum will lead the Hankyung
Philharmonic through its opening stage.
In the 3rd Korea-Czech Future Forum as well which was held at Praha, Czech on
Dec. 7th, Gum stressed that diplomacy in the years to come
should go with arts together, adding in that sense music can serve
as a good connection ring for such a purpose. In that regard,
conductor Gum seems to be equipped sufficiently to serve as new
Slovakia Honorary Consul.
To commemorate new launching of Slovakia Honorary Consulate
in Seoul while appointing conductor Gum as new Slovakia Honorary
Consul, Slovak Amb. Milan Lajciak & Mrs. Elena Lajciak threw an
opening reception of Slovakia Honorary Consulate at the luxurious
Four Seasons Hotel on Nov. 29th evening. By his acceptance
remarks, Gum committed himself to doing cultural exchanges
with Slovakia diversely.
Even though Romania National Day reception was overlapped at
same day, a number of well-wishers for Korea-Slovakia relations in the years to come attended Slovakia Honorary
Consulate opening reception including British Amb. Charles Hay
couple, Switzerland Amb. Linus von Castelmur couple and last
but not least Czech Amb. Tomas Husak couple etc, in addition
to diplomats from various Embassies and Slovakia residents in Seoul.
Gum Nanse, (born 25 September 1947) is a South Korea conductor.
In 1977, he was the first Korean to win the prize at the Herbert von
Karajan Conductors' Competition in Berlin. He is currently general
director and artistic director of the Seongnam Philharmonic
Orchestra and Hankyung Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also the
founder and artistic director of New World Philharmonic Orchestra.
He currently serves as the Principal of Seoul Arts High School.
Gum was born in Busan, is the son of Suhyun Gum who was a
composer and music educator. He studied music at Seoul Arts
High School and studied musical composition at Seoul National
University. He also studied conducting at the Universität der
Künste in Berlin under Prof. Hans-Martin Rabenstein.
In 1977, Gum was one of the prize winners (4th prize) at the
‘Herbert von Karajan Conductor's Competition and was the first
Korean conductor to be given an opportunity to conduct Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra. Since returning home in 1980, he was
appointed as the conductor of KBS Symphony Orchestra for 12 years.
In 1992, he moved to Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra. At that time
Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra was a struggling ensemble and had
difficulties attracting audiences to their concerts. Gum concentrated
on improving the quality of the performance and on refreshing
orchestra's image.
While he was in Suwon, Gum organized a series of special concerts
with Suwon Philharmonic such as ‘7-hour Marathon Concert' and
'New Year's Eve Concert at Seoul Arts Center'. Also, Gum began
a new educative concert series for young students in collaboration
with Seoul Arts Center in 1994 titled, 'Young People's Concerts
with Gum Nanse'. The concerts were particularly popular among
young students and the concerts remained sold-out for six consecutive years from 1994 to 1999.
During Gum's appointment as artistic director, Suwon Philharmonic's
number of concerts increased from about 10 concerts per year to
more than 60 concerts per year. Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra’s turnaround soon gathered media’s attention and in 1995,
Samsung Electronics(headquartered in Suwon) built a new outdoor concert hall and
rehearsal facilities for Suwon City and Suwon Philharmonic. Samsung
Electronics also sponsored Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra for five
years and its overseas tours in US, Canada, UK, Spain, Thailand (for
1998 Asian Games in Bangkok) for three years.
Since 1997, Gum has been primarily engaged in the activities of Euro-Asian Philharmonic Orchestra (now, New World Philharmonic
Orchestra) which he founded. Apart from New World Philharmonic,
he served as the Artistic Director of Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra (2006-10) and Incheon Philharmonic Orchestra (2010-14) consecutively.
In interviews, Gum often stresses that classical musicians should
be "proactive and extend their talents to the audience regardless
of venues". As an example, Gum gave a series of symphonic
concerts in the lobby of POSCO Center(POSCO’s main headquarters building in Seoul) since 1999. In the lobby of
POSCO Center, Gum and Euro-Asian Philharmonic gave concerts with programs that included
complete Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Brahms Symphonies.