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| Tenor Ryu Jung-phil / Courtesy of Feel Company |
By Lee Gyu-lee
Tenor Ryu Jung-phil is so much more than just a classical music vocalist.
Dubbed a "multiplayer in genres of music," Ryu unshackled himself from the conventions of classical music, and has been striving to apply his musical techniques in new and diverse ways.
"I want to be the singer who shows diverse pictures and genres of music," Ryu said during an interview with The Korea Times, Thursday. "Rather than specializing in one specific genre or having a similar repertory, I want my voice to be heard in different ways."
After graduating from Seoul National University Vocal Music Department, Ryu went to Italy for soloist diploma at Accademia Internazionale di Parma "Orfeo" in the late 1990s. Then he made a debut in Europe in the early 2000s and spent about 10 years there, performing as a classical music singer across Europe.
During his time abroad, he was exposed to many different types of music which caused him to take a deep interest in a wide variety of genres. "I've traveled foreign countries a lot as a vocalist, and each country I visited, I came to learn various genres that interested me, such as songs that are indigenous to that country. Then I began to hope to perform those songs on stage."
Although he began his career as a soloist specialized in classical music, he explored those new and diverse songs on stage. "I would study on my own aside from the classical songs. I collected songs and researched that kind of music."
When he came back to Korea, he performed on several TV musical shows.
Thanks to the frequent media exposure, he became famous among the general public, not only to classical music aficionados. "I like being the first of everything. When I was first offered to be on TV, I heard no classical singers had performed genres like tango, trot or pop music," he said.
He said Korean traditional songs are one of his favorites. "Whenever I had a chance to arrange my performance's repertoire in Europe, I always included a Korean song to perform," he said.
"I've sung well-known Korean songs when I was in Europe. And I got very positive responses from audiences, even though they seemed not to be touched or moved by my songs. This got me to think of how I could deliver Korean songs more effectively."
That was when he started to arrange traditional folk songs and "pansori," a traditional narrative musical genre, using Western-style and singing techniques.
"I received tremendously positive feedback," he said. "The definition of classical can be interpreted as art pieces that serve a high standard of excellence and are beloved year after year. And Korean folk songs and pansori serve the same meaning and value," he said.
"Many people tend to narrowly define classical music, but in a larger picture, these are also classical music in a different sense that I could take the approach as a singer."
His upcoming concert on Sept. 3 intends to take a great portion of Korean traditional songs, including "Sukdamori" and "Arirang Alone."
"I want audiences to enjoy different types of music at once at my concert," he said. In order to do so, he arranged the concert in two parts ― the first part solely on Western classical music and Korean songs for the second part.
He also added that he hopes to be up close and intimate with his audiences. "The purpose of the concert for me is to present my performance, but at the same time, it's also to interact with people and get involved with the performances."
The unique thing about his concerts is that the audiences are provided with glow sticks. "The second part of the concert has Korean pop songs, and in this part people can wave their glow sticks and be part of the performances and really get into the moment together."
His concert "Contigo: With you," orchestrated by Mostly Philharmonic Orchestra, will be held on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at KBS Hall located in Yeouido, Seoul.
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| A poster for Ryu's concert "Contigo: With you" / Courtesy of Feel Company |
