To the great disappointment of classical music lovers who had anticipated the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra’s opening concert for the Tongyeong International Music Festival on Saturday, the Austrian orchestra has called off its visit to Korea due to fears of radiation from Japan just two days before the concert.

The TIMF secretariat office said on Thursday the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra cancelled its two concerts for the festival ― the opening concert scheduled for Saturday and the second on March 28 ― due to concerns about radiation leakage from Japanese nuclear power plants in the wake of the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

“Despite our best efforts to assure safety, the orchestra notified us of the cancellation on Wednesday citing concerns about radiation leakage from Japan,” the TIMF secretariat office said in a statement.

“While the Korean government officially announced that the radiation leakage in Japan will not affect Korea and more than 150 other artists plan to visit Tongyeong for the 2011 TIMF, the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra’s concert cancellation seems to have been affected by the Austrians’ traumatic memory of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.”

The Austrian orchestra’s two concerts were all sold out in just a month when they went on sale in January.

Regarding whether the festival organizer will take a legal action against the orchestra for the abrupt concert cancellation, spokesperson Ahn Ji-hye did not comment on the issue but said “the organizer is discussing follow-up issues with artists who canceled the concerts.”

The opening concert will be replaced by “Alexander Liebreich & Good Friends,” a charity concert in which TIMF’s new artistic director Alexander Liebreich, TIMF’s residence artist soprano Suh Ye-ree, jazz vocalist Nah Youn-sun and veteran actress Yoon Seok-hwa will tell their stories through music.

All of the revenue from the opening charity concert will be donated to help victims hit by the earthquake in Japan, the organizer said.

During the music festival which runs through April 1 in the coastal city in South Gyeongsang Province, collection boxes will be installed at concert venues to encourage participants to make donations for Japan, it said.

The TIMF was established in 2002 to remember late Korean-German composer Yun I-sang (1917-1995), who was born in Chungmu, the old name of Tongyeong. Yun studied and settled in West Germany in the 1960s. Yun was kidnapped by the South Korean police for alleged espionage and was sentenced to life imprisonment. After seeking exile in West Germany in 1969, Yun was not allowed to visit Korea again.

Under the theme “Moving Dimension,” which was suggested by Libreich based on Yun I-sang’s 1971 work “Dimensionen,” the 2011 TIMF Season consists of classical and contemporary music concerts, concerts for children, forums, lectures and master classes. Participating artists include Isang Yun Competition winners Kim Jae-young and William Hong-chun Youn, contemporary classical music composer Chin Un-suk, German composer Heiner Goebbels and Russian pianist Igor Levit.

The music festival also includes TIMF Fringe 2011, a competition program for amateur musicians in classical music, rock, pop, fusion music and Korean traditional music. A total of 161 teams will hold small concerts in Tongyeong throughout the festival until April 1.

For those who purchased tickets for the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra’s concerts, the organizer will either fully refund the money or replace the tickets with those for other concerts during the festival. For ticket inquiries, call (055) 642-8662.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)