For stage actor Kim Jun-su, “Mozart!” is more than just another musical on his schedule. Kim, a former member of the legendary K-pop act TVXQ, made his musical debut with “Mozart!” 10 years ago, after leaving the band over a legal dispute with his former agency. “I still remember the moment before I went onstage 10 years ago. My heart was pounding and I could not stay still. I anxiously paced around the room,” Kim said during a press event held Thursday

Performance Aug. 2, 2020

The small county of Yangyang in Gangwon Province, a 2 1/2-hour drive from Seoul, has morphed into a bustling surf town in recent years, as the hub of Korea’s surfing culture.  Surf shops, restaurants and cafes for surfers line Yangyang’s streets. On the weekends, the beaches are packed with surfers in wetsuits looking far out into the horizon with their surf boards, waiting for the right wave.  The local surfing culture is thought to have emerged in the 1990s and today

Travel Aug. 1, 2020

Touch-free services may be the key focus for hotels in the post-coronavirus era, according to Park Hyatt Seoul General Manager Samuel Dabinett. Luxury hotel Park Hyatt Seoul shut down in March after a guest confirmed with COVID-19 visited the hotel. After a nearly two-month break, it reopened in June, changing some of its service manuals in pursuit of contactless service. During the break, the hotel developed a new QR-code for its compendium, allowing guests to access all the information reg

People Aug. 1, 2020

Blind violinist Kim Ji-sun is set for a new page of her life with plans across the Pacific region. Kim will attend the Manhattan School of Music in New York next year for graduate studies. She will be the first blind person to enter the two-year graduate program at the college. “The program was to begin in September, but has been delayed to January because of the coronavirus pandemic situation,” Kim told The Korea Herald in a phone interview Monday. “But still, I am excite

Performance Aug. 1, 2020

It’s coming three months later than planned, but the 19th Uijeongbu Music Theatre Festival will be held with live audiences from Aug. 7-16 in the Gyeonggi Province city. The in-person performing arts festival will take place at Uijeongbu Arts Center and other cultural facilities in Uijeongbu, just northeast of Seoul. Originally slated to take place in May, the UMTF was postponed twice due to the spread of COVID-19. The festival will introduce 11 indoor and 24 outdoor shows, marking a t

Performance July 31, 2020

It is said that high heels were originally designed for men. Though they are more conventionally worn by women these days, the Korean-language musical “Jamie” blurs the line between men and women with a pair of bright red high heels. The successful West End musical “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” opened in Korea earlier this month under the name “Jamie.” It was the first time the show was staged outside the UK, and the first adaptation in a language

Performance July 28, 2020

For Wilson Ng, the associate conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, getting to the venue of the 2020 Mahler Competition was like “riding a roller coaster.” The competition was held from June 29 to July 5 in Bamberg, Germany, defying many people’s expectation that the prestigious competition for conductors under 35 may not take place as scheduled. Travel restrictions, however, presented challenges to some of the16 contestants invited to perform in Bamberg,

Performance July 27, 2020

Universal Ballet successfully presented “Onegin,” the first full-length ballet to go on the stage in Korea in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Onegin,” a drama of tragic love, went onstage from July 18 to Sunday at the Chungmu Arts Center in central Seoul. The drama ballet created by celebrated choreographer John Cranko is based on Alexander Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin.” Kurt-Heinz Stolze arranged the music for the production, editing various

Performance July 26, 2020

TAEAN, South Chungcheong Province -- Though COVID-19 has yet to be contained, summer is here, and so is the vacation season. Taean is a popular tourist town on the west coast of Korea, about a three-hour drive from Seoul. The small seaside county was the site of the worst oil spill in Korea in 2007, when a crane-barge collision led to the leaking of 11 million gallons of oil into the ocean. Workers, residents and volunteers from across the nation gathered in Taean to clean the blackened beache

Travel July 25, 2020

Starry wedding at Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun Hotel & Residences presents small wedding package “Art Collection: The Starry Night.” The wedding package is available at grand ballroom Rahan or at the hotel’s rooftop garden. Decorations, inspired by the famous oil painting “The Starry Night” by Van Gogh, complement a private wedding ceremony. The wedding package is priced at 9.9 million won for 100 guests, inclusiv

Food July 24, 2020

Jeonju International Sori Festival The 2020 Jeonju International Sori Festival is a global music festival that centers on Korean music and vocals. It runs Sept. 16-20 at the Sori Arts Center in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. The festival bills itself as a major performing arts festival that brings together exquisite styles of music from around the globe, with its programs encompassing a wide array of performance genres. The program for the 2020 festival has not yet been set. For more inf

Travel July 24, 2020

The curtain went up on the 17th Music in PyeongChang festival Wednesday, kicking off three weeks of concerts. The biannual classical music festival, organized by the Gangwon Arts & Culture Foundation, will be held across Gangwon Province until Aug. 8. This year, the festival is titled “Must it be? It must be!” paying homage to Beethoven. Like many other music festivals this year, the summer event celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of the composer. On Wednesday,

Performance July 22, 2020

The National Gugak Center recently published the second edition of English-language e-book “Traditional Korean Instruments: A Practical Guide for Composers,” aiming to introduce gugak, traditional Korean music, instruments to foreign composers. The first edition of the guide, containing information about gayageum, geomungo, daegeum, piri, haegeum and ajaeng, was published in 2018. The new e-book, written by gugak musicians and scholars, was published in Korean last year. An Englis

Performance July 22, 2020

A giant panda has been born in Korea for the first time, according to Everland, a theme park under Samsung C&T, Wednesday. The female cub was born to Ai Bao and Le Bao at 9:49 p.m. on Monday. Ai Bao was in labor for an hour and a half. The baby panda born after a four-month gestation period weighs 197 grams and is 16.5 centimeters tall. According to Everland, both the mother and baby are in good health. The young panda will stay at a separate den at Panda World at the amusement park. Th

Social Affairs July 22, 2020

Lotte World Adventure will launch its Sky Bridge Tour program Friday from the top of its observatory, Seoul Sky, at Lotte World Tower. Lotte World Tower, a 123-story skyscraper in eastern Seoul, will add the Sky Bridge Tour program to its activity list. The program allows participants to cross the outdoor Sky Bridge, which connects the tower’s two structures.   The 11-meter bridge is situated 541 meters above ground. It will be the first time the tower’s uppermost structure

Travel July 21, 2020