Plucking Concerts Switzerland - South Korea
The cancellation of the EuroZupf Festival in Bruchsal (Germany) due to the coronavirus has given the zupf.helvetica orchestra the great opportunity to go on a musical journey with a Korean mandolin orchestra.
The Swiss mandolin and guitar orchestra zupf.helvetica, which meets 3-4 times a year on a weekend for its work phases, decided to use the canceled date for an international event anyway. Contact was made with the South Korean Bundang Mandolin Orchestra, which was planning a trip to Europe - not for the first time. This led to an interesting collaboration, which resulted in the project of three joint concerts at different venues in Switzerland.
pluck.helvetica is still a young orchestra, founded in 2017 on the music island of Rheinau, which is mainly made up of amateur and a few professional musicians from all over Switzerland. The instruments represented are the mandolin, guitar, mandola, mandoloncello and double bass, which are common in plucked string orchestras. The orchestra has grown steadily since its foundation and has already undertaken small concert tours to Lugano, Geneva and Germany. It has also performed live on RTS radio in western Switzerland.
zupf.helvetica is dedicated to the broad spectrum of early to contemporary music for mandolin and guitar orchestras and expands their musical diversity with commissioned compositions by Swiss composers. Three works written for zupf.helvetica will be performed for the first time at these concerts in May under the musical direction of Christian Wernicke (conductor and guitarist from Heidelberg): Works by Victor Solomin, Anina Keller and Ramon Bischoff.
Joint journey
The Bundang Mandolin Orchestra, based in the metropolitan region of the South Korean capital Seoul, consists of 45 amateur musicians and has been led by conductor Seo Yun Sook since it was founded 24 years ago. It has undertaken concert tours in Asia and Europe. Thanks to its larger sound volume, the Korean orchestra often performs together with wind and string instruments, piano and percussion in its home country.
The organizers of this joint project - the "Culture for All" association and the Swiss Plucked Music Association - are looking forward to the joint rehearsals in May at Lake Walen,
to the cultural exchange and the performances. Each orchestra will perform its own part and finally two pieces - one from Switzerland and one from South Korea - will be performed together, a musical treat not to be missed.
