Friday night, David and I went to see the Chinese National Symphony Orchestra at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. The concert was the second, and final, performance of the orchestra’s two-night series in Seoul this week.
(I was especially excited because we were going out! On a Friday night! And …. I discovered to my utter amazement, that I could still fit into my thankfully-not-so-little black dress and silk wrap.)
The real highlight, for me, was pianist Kang Choong-mo’s performance during Rachmaninov’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” Op. 43. His playing is both technically amazing and, at the same time, really warm and expressive. I’ve never really been into classical piano, honestly. But I’d definitely go hear him play again in a heartbeat.
If you haven’t been to the Sejong Center, it really is a wonderful place to see a symphony or opera. First, it’s location near City Hall and Seoul Plaza puts you in the heart of a beautiful, historic part of the city. It’s within walking distance of Gwanghwamun (now undergoing restoration) Gyeongbok Palace, and the modern Seoul Financial Center mall, among other things.
It’s also a modern, spacious performance center (and, according to Wikipedia, home to the biggest pipe organ in Asia). The concert was in the main hall, with wonderful, rich acoustics. The seats are comfortable and high-backed, each featuring individual color monitors that allow opera-goers to easily see subtitles. This may be the standard for large-city performance centers, but, being as we are from the sticks by comparison (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), I was really impressed.
And, now I’m going to depart from the high-brow artsy focus of this post to add another thing to Michael’s list of things he loves about Korea. One of the things I really love—and I know I’ve said this many, many times before—but, I’m saying it again: People here realize that humans need to eat. Especially those humans who are well into their second trimester of pregnancy.
I’ve always loved going to see classical music, and I’ve tried to be supportive of local symphonies wherever I’ve lived. Granted, I’ve never lived anywhere that was home to a nationally ranked orchestra—so maybe this is not a widespread problem. But, if you schedule a three- to four-hour performance to start at 7:30 on a weeknight, you need to serve some food, somehow, somewhere.
I always hated trying to rush out of work early to make a performance at Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center only to find that the only thing available in the lobby before the performance, and at intermission, were alcoholic drinks and coffee. They usually had a really nice buffet available, if you could get there at 5:30 when it set up, but that’s when most people leave work—if they’re lucky.
Here again, the Sejong Center didn’t disappoint, even considering that here—unlike in Atlanta—I could have walked about 15 feet outside the front door and bought dinner at a sidewalk stand if I’d really been in a pinch. But, the center food vendors offered coffee and an assortment of snacks. Call me a Philistine if you want to, but that egg salad and ham sandwich at intermission made all the difference in being able to really appreciate the Shostakovich symphony versus exerting all my will not to chew on the armrest for the remaining 45 minutes of the performance.
And, while I’m at it, I’m going to add another plug for studying up on your Korean if you’re an expat.
When we bought our programs, the girl behind the counter almost fell over when we told her it was okay that there was no English-language version available. She asked where we were from (which I am proud to say I correctly interpreted on the first try), and then complimented our Korean, going so far as to say that most Americans she met only knew a few basic verbs (which she obligingly listed out for us). David took the opportunity to chat for a few minutes, while I just smiled beatifically and tried to look smart.
A little background: we got our tickets through a coworker of mine who won them during a radio quiz and then couldn’t use them. (College friend’s housewarming party on the same night.) The tickets were for great seats, list price 90,000 KRW a piece. But when we looked closely, we realized that we had two tickets in the same row, but at opposite ends. (Glad my coworker, single and male, didn’t end up taking a date!)
We thought that maybe we were reading the seating chart wrong, so David went back to the girl with the programs and asked, “Are these seats together?” She shrugged and basically said she didn’t know, “But these are together,” she added, quickly replacing our two tickets with two others that were orchestra-level, second row.
Quite an upgrade.
