Local talent and overseas veterans to share the stage at SAC International Music Festival

The SAC International Music Festival returns on Tuesday with a multinational lineup featuring renowned overseas artists and talented Korean musicians.

Conductor Dan Ettinger, left, and violinist Moon Barennie speak to press about the upcoming SAC International Music Festival at Seoul Arts Center in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Friday. [SEOUL ARTS CENTER]

Seoul Arts Center’s annual in-house SAC International Music Festival is slated to return Tuesday with a multinational scope and scale.

The event, previously known as SAC Summer Music Festival, featured only local musicians in 2021 and 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It began inviting foreign artists last year, and its upcoming fourth edition will showcase a slew of overseas veterans. The organizers also selected seven Korean acts from an open registration pool earlier this year, all of whom are determined to match the grandeur of the festival's renewed title.

Leading the opening and closing performances is Israeli music director Dan Ettinger. Ettinger is currently the music director for The Israeli Opera Tel Aviv and Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, and the SAC International Music Festival will mark his first time conducting in Korea.

“Like many things in my life, [the festival] chose me,” Ettinger said during the festival’s news conference at Seoul Arts Center on Friday. “I’m a big believer in fate, and everything has a right moment in life. The timing felt right when my management contacted me about the festival a few months ago, and I am so happy it chose me.”

Ettinger will be conducting the SAC Festival Orchestra, for which his longtime acquaintance Moon Barennie is seated as the lead violinist. Moon is the principal second violin of the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, Germany.

“When I first met [Ettinger] some 10 years ago, he was like a rising star, and I am so glad to be working with him again,” Moon said. “I particularly remember his unique interpretations of Mozart’s concerto, filled with a certain passion that was completely new. So, I am very much looking forward to his music interpretations for this festival.”

Other overseas members invited to the upcoming festival include Dutch pianist brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen, English pianist Imogen Cooper, Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and German pianist Julius Asal. The Korean classical Arete Quartet and tenor Baek Seok-jong have also been invited to the concert.

Baritone Park Ju-sung [SEOUL ARTS CENTER]

The Korean musicians selected through the open registration are expected to add more color to the event through their creative and ambitious repertoires.

Baritones Kim Tae-han and Park Ju-sung said that they would “showcase a rare baritone duo performance backed with piano.”

A group of local horn players will perform a Korean Horn Sound concert; the Abel Quartet, which placed first in Vienna's 2015 International Joseph Haydn Competition will fill its show with two numbers by Franz Schubert and Arnold Schoenberg, respectively; and TREU Ensemble, a woodwind sextet, will play music under the theme of the “Beauty of the Times.” Promising performers violinist Wee Jae-won, guitarist Ahn Yong-heon and pianist Park Yeon-min will hold solo recitals.

The festival runs through Aug. 11 at Seoul Arts Center’s Concert Hall, IBK Chamber Hall and Recital Hall in Seocho District, southern Seoul.

Seoul Arts Center is the country’s representative music venue founded in 1988. It houses seven indoor performance halls for operas, plays, musicals and concerts, as well as two art galleries and a museum. The largest concert hall has 2,505 seats.

Tickets and further information about the SAC International Music Festival are available at www.sac.or.kr.

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]