Today we had an evening concert with the Suncheon City Chorale, but first, we got to start our morning with a tour of the Naganeupseong Folk Village. The village was about 40 minutes by bus from our hotel, and it is an ancient, walled-town essentially served as a “county seat” for the area during the Joseon Dynasty. I say “is” instead of “was” because the village still has about 100 residents living in it (their ancient houses had been renovated to have air conditioners). As you can see in the photos, the houses were built out of clay and covered with straw roofs, and the village also had governmental buildings and a fortress! We got to explore for about an hour before we returned to the hotel.
After we checked out of the hotel for good, we headed to our concert hall in Suncheon. Before rehearsals we had a lunch break, and we headed to a place called “Energy Burger” with, as you can probably guess, burgers and fries! Nearly every restaurant I’ve been to has kiosks for ordering with English translations, and this is incredibly helpful! I’ve learned how to say hello and thank you in Korean, and the kindness and limited English of restaurant and store workers here has gotten us the rest of the way. After lunch we had long afternoon rehearsals with the Suncheon City Chorale. This concert has been extensively advertised in the city with banners and signs everywhere, and to give you an idea of the importance of it to the city, Suncheon’s mayor spoke to us during the rehearsals! This is another sign of the value and importance of choral singing in Korea across all walks of life, and it’s an importance that I wish would infiltrate American life to a greater extent.
Every now and then, there are concerts that you know you’ll remember for a long time, and the Suncheon concert was one of those concerts. From the first breath we felt the energy in the hall and knew we were ready to bring our best, and while I think all of our concerts here have been a success, the Suncheon concert was the best we have sounded. The audience was very hospitable, and at the close of the concert, we sang “My Old Kentucky Home” with the Suncheon City Chorale and were greeted with a standing ovation (standing ovations are not culturally normal in Korea and rarely seen). Singing our state song halfway around the world reminds me that on this trip, we are not just ambassadors for the University of Louisville but also for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and I hope that we are worthy ones.
After the concert, we unfortunately had a two hour bus ride ahead of us due to another performance the next morning in Daejeon. We arrived at our hotel in Daejeon at around 12:30am, and we had to rest quickly to leave the hotel at 7:50am for our sound check. Our concert was at 10:30am, and it was designed for a middle school audience with information about the pieces presented in Korean by our own Dr. Ahn and a translated Q&A with Dr. Hatteberg at the end. While we were tired, we were vocally ready after plenty of warm-ups, and we delivered another successful concert!
We had free time to rest and recover for the remainder of the day, and I went to lunch with Dongcheol and Minji (two of our Korean grad students). I’ve learned on this trip to trust their judgement for meals, and the pork belly and noodles at the restaurant were delicious! After spending the afternoon resting in my room and catching up on some emails, we got dinner at a nearby restaurant with chicken and fries (if you know me, you know I was going to find chicken and fries on this trip). This blog comprises two days because of our late night travels after the Suncheon concert, but I’ll try to keep it to one post a day from now on. Thank you for reading!