The KBS Symphony Orchestra, the older of Korea’s two leading orchestras, is embroiled in a crisis, the worst since its founding 56 years ago. The problems facing the orchestra, currently under the management of the state-run Korea Broadcasting System, are deep and complex and in a sense epitomize maladies that strike many social institutions of present Korea and the cultural community in particular.

The cancellation of the 666th regular monthly concert, which was scheduled for March 8-9 at the Seoul Arts Center was unprecedented. The mishap was attributed to disharmony between the orchestra’s 90-odd members and its principal conductor and music director Hahm Shin-ik. Yet, we are appalled to notice the dark shadow of politics in the dispute as well as ostracism from different educational lineages, among other things.

Conflicts between the conductor and members of the orchestra started when Hahm decided to conduct annual auditions for the musicians to “freshen up the team and upgrade the music” soon after he took the KSO baton in July 2010. Most of the members, who are under automatic renewal contracts with KBS which virtually guarantee their employment until 61 years old, resisted the decision. Several younger members have complied with the audition process, only to be antagonized by other members.

Trouble had brewed as KBS searched for a new principal conductor for the orchestra in early 2010 and Hahm Shin-ik, who was then a professor at Yale University’s School of Music and music director of Yale Philharmonia Orchestra, was chosen by a seven-man selection committee. Resenting that they were not consulted in the search process and suspecting that Hahm might be the choice of the Blue House and KBS president Kim In-kyoo, members of the orchestra conducted a vote to show their overwhelming (93 percent) disapproval of the candidate.

Hahm, born in 1957, graduated from Konkuk University in Seoul and earned his master’s degree in music at Rice University of the United States. After training himself with various community orchestras in the U.S., he took a teaching position at Yale School of Music and began conducting the Yale Symphony Orchestra in 1995. Appointing Hahm as music director of the Yale Philharmonia, a bigger ensemble than YSO, in June 2004, School of Music dean Robert Blocker praised Hahm for “a deep commitment to music-making at the highest level.”

Between 2001 and 2004, Hahm was back in Korea as the music director of the Daejeon Municipal Orchestra, while concurrently directing the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra in Alabama, a job he held until 2009. His biographical record has numerous names of orchestras that he has conducted on tours to Asia, Europe and the Americas during the 1990s and 2000s.

Some members of the KSO suspected his credentials and privately checked with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra about Hahm’s listing of his performance with it in 1993 and 2004. They were told that Hahm conducted an “orchestra lease event” with the LA Philharmonic in 2004 and that the 1993 performance was a “Symphony for Youth.” The episode deepened the distrust Hahm’s new colleagues at the KSO had in their appointed leader, who earned fame overseas but did not attend one of the prestigious institutions in Seoul that they did.

On March 5, when the orchestra started practicing for the regular concert, a video crew from the KBS office in charge of the KSO entered the room to record the group playing. The musicians protested and blamed the conductor for inviting them. Verbal and physical commotions continued the following day and conductor Hahm decided that a normal performance was impossible under the circumstances.

KSO’s cancellation of its regular performance disappointed classical music fans, including the orchestra’s 2,000 individual sponsors. The KBS Symphony Orchestra is an extreme case but similar problems have been reported from various “national troupes” of performing arts where members invariably refuse periodical auditions and tend to attack their appointed directors for “arbitrary leadership.”

At the moment, there is little outsiders can do about the dispute. Coincidentally, KBS is in trouble with a strike by its union. Conductor Hahm and his members should seek reconciliation through understanding each other’s positions. The KBS management may be able to induce a compromise with a hint of disbanding the chronically deficit-ridden orchestra if the internal feud is prolonged.