“My works reflect my devotion to God, my love to my husband and children…and my life.” I recently had conversations with a composer, Hyejung Yoon. I had known her since August 2021, yet we seldom talked about her life and music. I got to learn more about this incredible person only recently. I am delighted to share her music on this blog.
Hyejung is a composer based in South Korea and the United States. She holds a DMA degree from CCM and worked with Professor Mara Helmuth during her years in school. Before 2014, she specialized in interactive computer music and serial music that recalls 18th-century musical style. After her marriage, she ceased writing avant-garde and experimental music and turned her attention to acoustic music.
The first piece by Hyejung I would like to share with the readers is Duo for Two Violins (2012). Hyejung told me that this piece is “abstract but mathematical.” The work often evokes 18th-century fugue and creates structural tension and release with major and minor seconds.
Duo for Two Violins (2012)
The second piece is probably one of Hyejung’s last “avant-garde” works. The piece is entitled Two Little Girls for Solo Oboe (2013). The piece is written around the time Hyejung married her husband and started raising her two stepdaughters. “Two Little Girls is about my daughters, Yuna and Yuri. They are jumping, tumbling, running, crawling, whispering, and tweeting like little birds. Sometimes they make screaming sounds with joy and happiness.” Initially, Hyejung did not intend to write a piece dedicated to her daughters; she wanted to write a piece that purely explores both traditional and extended techniques for the oboe. “Although my original intention through this piece was not describing my daughters, now I am so glad that I found the right title.”
The Dark Age of her life as a composer followed her marriage. Since 2014, Hyejung stopped writing music to take care of her daughters. Just lately, she resumed composition after Yeon-Kyung Kim, a DMA in Piano Performance student at CCM, commissioned a solo piano work four months ago. “I was so eager to write music, but I just couldn’t because of my children…I am thankful to Yeon-Kyung for giving me a second chance to live my life.”
The third piece I am sharing is Sending You My Good-Night Kisses. The composer is currently working on the piece and has completed the piece's first movement. The first movement is called “Merry-Go-Round,” which conveys a mother’s joy, love, pain, scars, and hope. “Loving and being loved, asking for forgiveness and forgiving, pain and sorrow, joy and hope, and longing for a better understanding of life were primary motivations for me to come back to write music. I wanted to describe the perspective change from looking at the evening glow to the morning glow with hope in my music. This change helped me to stand up and love again.”
More information about Hyejung’s music can be found on her website and Facebook page!
Website: https://www.hyejungyoon.com.
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/hyejungy.
-Lydia Lee
Hi Lydia! Thank you for sharing this music with us! I am very interested in what you wrote about Yoon's "Dark Age" of composition. When discussing female composers historically, we often notice that their musical output decreases significantly once they become mothers. Even in our modern society, in which women are ostensibly given the same opportunities as men, the burden of parenting often falls disproportionately on women. I appreciate your and Yoon's openness in discussing these challenges and how they have impacted her career as a composer.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this Lydia. As a father myself I have often thought about music that portrays the joys and growing pains of having children and taking care of them. I actually have a list of music I want to play someday about or inspired by young children. I love how she uses her music to respond to the whole experience of childhood and parenting - the good and the difficult. I think there is a lot we can learn in the simpleness and innocence of children as well as the difficulties and joys of raising them! Like Marissa, I would love to hear her write a piece that portrays the difficulties of suddenly dropping her academic and composition work and dedicating her time to her children. I know from personal experience how difficult that can be for women. It is something all young mothers know about and talk about amongst themselves but is less known generally. Again, thank you for sharing, this is such refreshing music!
ReplyDeleteHyrum! I have a list of music about childhood in my notes app as well !! haha
DeleteHello Lydia,
ReplyDeleteSomething I really loved about this composer, is that she is sharing part of her life and experiences as a woman through her compositions. I consider that being a mother is something very special and difficult at the same time.
In the third piece that you present here, I like the way that she has to describe what being a mother means for her. Personally, I think that she is sharing very personal about herself.
Thanks for sharing this.
Citlalmina
These are really great pieces. I enjoyed reading how Mrs. Yoon valued her family's time together coupled with her experience of it through her music. Also seeing the connection/collab with YK (Yeon-Kyung) is awesome.
ReplyDeleteJO
Thanks for sharing these! I really liked Duo for 2 violins! Yoon is an example of how different areas of our life are tightly connected and affect each other. Even if sometimes we can't handle all of them...eventually, we are learning how to get benefits from them and to unite them together.
ReplyDeleteDiana C
DeleteHi Lydia! Thank you for sharing this! I really enjoyed listening to her music and I think her story is a great reminder that regardless of what happens in our lives, music is always something that we can come back to.
ReplyDeleteLianna
Lydia, thank you for sharing these works. I would be interested to hear some of Yoon's electronic works to see how it compares to her other instrumental works. Also responding to Marissa and Hyrum's points, that it is certainly a perspective that is not discussed often if at all and for me, having such insight from such a great composer (and colleagues) helps address blind spots we may not have been aware of!
ReplyDeleteStephen
Hi, Lydia. This was really interesting! It's awesome to read about a composer that attended CCM. I really enjoyed "Merry-Go-Round." You can hear the various changes in emotion throughout. I think this piece would fit very well in some kind of film, it conveys different emotions very effectively. Thanks for sharing! - Noah Ward
ReplyDeleteHi Lydia! Learning about this composer was cool because what she puts into writing. Bonus points for being a graduate of CCM! I also liked learning that she has a personal connection to the piece she writes and that she only writes when she can give it her full attention. Thank you for sharing! -Lydia Young
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Lydia! Like everyone else has said, it's great to see her talking so openly about her struggles with being a musician and raising children. I also like how you pointed out that she said she hadn't originally intended to write about her daughters, but it ended up happening. She seems like someone for whom music is deeply personal, and you really conveyed that. It also reminded me of the discussion of a composer's "voice" that can never be truly hidden.
ReplyDelete-Molly Sanford
Hi Lydia, Hyejung's writing is so full of life. Seeing the snapshots of her musical compositions from 2012 to 2022 is so enlightening to how she thinks of her music these days and how interconnected her family is with her music. I would love to actually play the pieces from Sending you Good Night Kisses as well and I should definitely reach out to both Yeonkyung and Hyejung! Merry-Go-Round is so tender and sweet and really reflects a touching portrayal of connection with her daughters.
ReplyDeleteHi Lydia, thanks for sharing the music of a CCM student! I think it's really important for all musicians to have each others back and support each other and this is a great example of that. I really enjoyed listening to Merry-Go-Round. Hyejung's description, she mentioned the the difference between the perspectives of different glows and it was very apparent that her music did exactly that.
ReplyDelete-Taiga Benito
I really loved here about the origins of these works and this composer in general. Her approach to her music sounds so raw and authentic and its amazing to see a CCM alum doing such wonderful things. -Zack T
ReplyDelete