Required Repertoire
The 2012 Music Competition will be using an updated list of repertoire pieces from previous years.
Purchases may be made through Paypal (links provided below). Once you've made a purchase, an email will be sent to you with a download link for your music.
Primary and elementary division collections are $3 each; junior and senior are $5. Full violin or piano repertoire collections are additionally available for $10. Violin pieces include solo part and score.
Please note that students must play the required piece appropriate for the division in which s/he will compete.
| Piano | Primary |
Blue Bird - Dong-Il Sheen Dungre Dangsil - Dong-Il Sheen |
|---|---|---|
| Elementary |
Beggar's Song - Dong-Il Sheen Longing for the Sun - Dong-Il Sheen |
|
| Junior |
Changbu Taryeong - Misook Kim Qwe-Ji-Na Ching-Ching Na-Ne - Misook Kim Yin-Yang (Infinity) - Misook Kim |
|
| Senior |
Mong - Heeyoung Yang Ongheya - Jean Ahn Tae-Pyung-Ga - Eun Young Lee |
|
| Violin | Primary |
Jindo-Arirang - Misook Kim The Rainbow - Misook Kim Waltz in Pentatonic - Misook Kim |
| Elementary |
Korean Barcarolle - Misook Kim Fun, FUNNER, Funniest - Misook Kim | |
| Junior |
Sae-Ta-Ryung - Eun Young Lee Yang San Do - Dong-Il Sheen |
|
| Senior |
JOY of Ong-He-Ya - Misook Kim (third place, 2008 composition competition) Toad - Jeong Kyu Park (first place, 2005 composition competition) |
Purchase complete piano repertoire for $10
Purchase complete violin repertoire for $10
Purchase two pieces for $3
Blue Bird
by Dong-Il Sheen
"Blue birds, blue birds, don't disturb the green-bean fields; the farmers will cry if the flowers are dropped and lost." It is said this lullaby was in reference to the Korean general Juhn Bong-Joon, who led an unsuccessful uprising against corrupt rulers in the late 19th century.
In the first part of this piece left hand is playing the melody with right hand accompaniment, and in the second part right hand plays the melody while left hand plays accompaniment.
Dungre Dangsil
by Dong-Il Sheen
This song is also known as "Odol-dogee" and is the most popular folk song from Jeju Island. The rhythmic pattern of this piece was slightly modified from the original song in order to express the lively feeling of the original song.
Dong-il Sheen was born in Seoul, Korea. He was described as "a quiet revolutionary who broke the barrier of classical music" (Culture and Me magazine 2006). In a 2002 article in the New Music Composition and Critics journal, Professor Young-Han Heo of the Korean National University of Arts wrote, "Dong-il Sheen is a composer who filled the huge void in our lives with a new style of creative music. He explored music style that was ignored by other composers and now firmly established his own style."
Mr. Sheen has been active in writing music in many different styles, including western European music, traditional Korean music, children's music, film soundtracks, and musicals. He graduated Seoul National University and received his Master's degree at the New York University Graduate School of Music. He collaborated with pianist Jung Hee Han in the album Blue Bicycle, which later received a critical acclaim. He started the new style music movement "Han-ma-dang" and "Music Composers-ma-dang."
In 2002, Mr. Sheen collaborated with writer-illustrator Jae-soo Liu in the CD-Book Yellow Umbrella, which was named as one of the 10 best illustrated books by the New York Times. Japanese pianist Takako Takahashi made a CD of Mr. Sheen's music in Japan.
He received numerous awards including the Best Young Artists of the Year award from the Korean Ministry of Culture & Tourism in 2003, and the Grand Prize of the Year in composers and conductors categories from the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) in 2004.
Mr. Sheen is a board member of the Association of Korean Musicians, President of the Composer's Association (Jahk-gok-ma-dang), and Co-president of the Children's Arts Production. Currently he is a lecturer at the Korean National University of Arts and Seoul National University Graduate School of Music.
Purchase two pieces for $3
Beggar's Song
by Dong-Il Sheen
Beggar's Song, also known as "Market Song", was commonly sung by beggars wandering around market places. Unlike other Korean folk songs, this melody is in 4/4 rhythm. Most Koreans are very familiar with many variations of this tune. This piece was written using seventh chords with a humorous expression of the original tune.
Longing for the Sun
by Dong-Il Sheen
Longing for the Sun: "Sun, sun, come out of cloud, quickly eat your bowl of rice and kimchi soup, come out naked on a drum and jang-gu beat." This song was sung by children waiting for the sun to rise or while the sun was covered by passing cloud. As the sun emerges they repeat the song in a faster tempo. This piece was composed using the original melody in its original format.
Dong-il Sheen was born in Seoul, Korea. He was described as "a quiet revolutionary who broke the barrier of classical music" (Culture and Me magazine 2006). In a 2002 article in the New Music Composition and Critics journal, Professor Young-Han Heo of the Korean National University of Arts wrote, "Dong-il Sheen is a composer who filled the huge void in our lives with a new style of creative music. He explored music style that was ignored by other composers and now firmly established his own style."
Mr. Sheen has been active in writing music in many different styles, including western European music, traditional Korean music, children's music, film soundtracks, and musicals. He graduated Seoul National University and received his Master's degree at the New York University Graduate School of Music. He collaborated with pianist Jung Hee Han in the album Blue Bicycle, which later received a critical acclaim. He started the new style music movement "Han-ma-dang" and "Music Composers-ma-dang."
In 2002, Mr. Sheen collaborated with writer-illustrator Jae-soo Liu in the CD-Book Yellow Umbrella, which was named as one of the 10 best illustrated books by the New York Times. Japanese pianist Takako Takahashi made a CD of Mr. Sheen's music in Japan.
He received numerous awards including the Best Young Artists of the Year award from the Korean Ministry of Culture & Tourism in 2003, and the Grand Prize of the Year in composers and conductors categories from the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) in 2004.
Mr. Sheen is a board member of the Association of Korean Musicians, President of the Composer's Association (Jahk-gok-ma-dang), and Co-president of the Children's Arts Production. Currently he is a lecturer at the Korean National University of Arts and Seoul National University Graduate School of Music.
Purchase three pieces for $5
Changbu Taryeong
by Misook Kim
Changbu Taryeong is a simple, bright, and cheerful folk song from the Kyung-Gi Province. The real treat in this movement is found in the unique harmonies and changing meters that are accompanied with lyrical melody. The last chord is meant to be humorous as it interjects an otherwise virtuosic passage, and completely stops the momentum of energy.
Qwe-Ji-Na Ching-Ching Na-Ne
by Misook Kim
Qwe-Ji-Na Ching-Ching Na-Ne was originally meant for shaman rituals, but it became a folk song of the Kyoung-Sang Province. It starts with a slow tempo while the two main themes keep repeating as a call and response between two contrasting dynamics and registers of piano. The finale is a fast and wild ride to the very end.
Yin-Yang (Infinity)
by Misook Kim
The compositional plot of Yin-Yang (Infinity) reflects the harmony and balance of the Korean flag and comes from simple melodies of folk songs from Jeju Island. It is strictly written in a 5-note scale, "Kye-Myun-Jo", with extended use of pedal to express the movement of the universe.
Misook Kim received her B.A. with the honor of Cum Laude from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. After finishing her "New Star Concert" sponsored by the Cho-sun Newspaper, she entered the graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin where she completed her M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition and the certificate of piano performance. Reviewer Mike Greenberg, writing in the San Antonio Express-News, called the composer "a bold and unrepentant modernist." He also has mentioned "each of her works presented thus far has impressed with its fearless modernism, its concision and its strong individual profile."
Kim has performed as a composer as well as a pianist in various concerts of her own works from solo to larger ensemble compositions throughout the States and Korea. Including commissions for the MUSICOPIA Concert, Olmos Ensemble, she has won International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Judith Zaimont Award and the Long Island Arts Council International Composition Competition in 2007. She was a former faculty member at The University of the Incarnate Word and Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She had also served as a music director at KUMC. In Fall 2006, Kim joined the faculty at the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College, IL.
Purchase three pieces for $5
Mong
by Heeyoung Yang
This is a short piece based on the Korean traditional song "Mongeumpo-Taryeon", a simple pentatonic melody. The title Mong means 'dream,' and it describes the earnest desire of a woman who longs to meet her beloved as implied in the text of the tune. The main concerns in the compositional procedure were to evoke Korean themes and to compose in simpler musical language aiming for the pre-college pianists in the competition.
Ongheya
by Jean Ahn
Ongheya is one of the most famous farming songs from Korea. An antiphonal song, it features a 'call and response' between the leader and the farmers. This work enhances the antiphonal character of the song by highly contrasting the music of each side. Throughout the piece, the communal spirit of the farmers is emphasized. Ongheya was commissioned by the Renée Fisher Award and Competition in New Haven.
Tae-Pyung-Ga
by Eun Young Lee
The lyrics of Tae-Pyung-Ga expresses the effort to overcome mundane anguish by singing joyful tunes. This work was completed at MacDowell Colony in May 2010.
Heeyoung Yang (born in 1979, Korea) began her studies in music composition with Eunyoung Kwak at Sunwha Art School in 1991 and earned her Bachelor's Degree from the Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea (Summa Cum Laude). She holds a M.M. in composition from the graduate school of Yonsei University where she studied with Chan Hae Lee and from College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.
Her pieces, GAME for four cellos and Soliloquy were performed at the Summer Music Festival '05 and '06 in Cincinnati. She had a solo recital at Cohen Family Studio Theater in 2006. In the same year her pieces were performed in Croatia and France. She is also active in Christian choral music offering various pieces in Churches in Cincinnati area. She is currently working toward her doctoral degree with Joel Hoffman at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.
Born in Korea, Jean Ahn began to study piano and composition at a very early age. She received her B.A. and M.M. from Seoul National University under the tutelage of professor Baek Byoung Dong; in fall of 2008, she received her PhD from UC Berkeley, where her teachers included Edmund Campion, Cindy Cox, David Wessel, Jorge Liederman and Richard Felciano.
Her works range from solo instruments to full orchestra, as well as choral, dance, and electroacoustic music. Recent awards for her compositions include 1st prize from the Renée Fisher Award and Competition, the Korean National Music Composers Award, 1st prize from the Sejong Music Composition Competition, UC Berkeley's De Lorenzo Prize, and the Pan Music Festival Award. Jean's music was featured at the Aspen Music Festival (Susan and Ford Schumann Composition Fellow), June in Buffalo, the Oregon Bach Festival, Music 07, SCI conferences, IAWM Beijing Congress, the Spark Festival, the Fresno New Music Festival, University of Central Missouri New Music Festival, New York City Electronic Music Festival, and IAWM Festivals, among others. Her works have been performed by Ensemble Sur Plus, pianist Lisa Moore (Bang on a can), pianist Shannon Wettstein (Zeitgeist), Berkeley Contemporary Players, and others.
Recently she has focused on orchestral works. Her orchestra piece "Salt" was premiered by the UC Berkeley's University Symphony under the baton of David Milnes in May 2008 and also received Honorable Mention from the ACO New Music Reading judges and the Minnesota Composers Institute. This work was also selected for the Memphis Symphony Orchestra New Music Readings, which is a part of ACO's Earshot program. Her further orchestral experience was with the Berkeley Symphony (director, Joana Carneiro), where she wrote three new pieces as an Emerging Composer in Residence. Dr. Ahn has also studied electronic/computer music at CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technologies) and is interested in integrating technology and Asian traditional instruments and elements. Her recent works include a choral piece commissioned by the San Francisco-based choir group Volti and a dance project collaborating with Ongdance company and video artist Yewon Cho. She is currently a Lecturer at the University of Pacific at Stockton and lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two young children.
A native of Korea, Eun Young Lee graduated from Ewha Women's University with undergraduate and graduate degrees in Music Theory. After teaching music in universities across Korea, she moved to the United States in 1999, where she did graduate studies with David Noon at the Manhattan School of Music. Currently Ms. Lee is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, where she is a recipient of the Lowell C. Wadmond Award, Doolittle Harrison Fellowship and Humanities Grant. Her current teachers include Shulamit Ran, Marta Ptaszynska, Jan Radzynski, Bernard Rands, Howard Sandroff, and Kotoka Suzuki.
Ms. Lee has won multiple awards for her music, including first prize for the Tsang-Houei Hsu International Music Composition Award; the 2008 Max Di Julio Prize at the Nevada Encounters of New Music (N.E.O.N.) Festival; Honorable Mention in Great Wall International Competition; the first regional award in the SCI/ASCAP student composition commission (2006, 2009, 2010). Additionally, she was a recipient of the MacDowell Colony and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowships, and the Gerald Oshita Memorial Fellowship for the 2010 Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Her music has been heard through Art of the States, EBU (European Broadcasting Union), and KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) programes, and is featured in the SCI Journal of Music Scores (Vol. 41) as well as CD series (No.23). Prominent ensembles including the New York New Music Ensemble, eighth blackbird, Pacifica String Quartet, ALEA III, North/South Consonance Ensemble, Timetable Percussion, and Geum-Pa Flute Ensemble have performed her music. Her instrumental pieces, multimedia pieces, computer music, and film scores were featured in festivals and concerts in many countries, including June in Buffalo, SCI Conference, SCI National Conference, MGMC, Czech-America Institute in Prague, Korean Music Expo, 60X60 Project Vox Novus, Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, Gene Siskel Film Center, Pinocoteca do estado de Sao Paulo in Brazil, and Music09 in Switzerland. In 2008 she participated in the Atlantic Center for the Arts as an Associate Artist-in-Residence to Master Artist Augusta Read Thomas.
Purchase three pieces for $3
A Collection of Korean Music for Children
by Misook Kim
I. Jindo-Arirang
III. The Rainbow
V. Waltz in Pentatonic
A Collection of Korean Music for Children for violin and piano is written for fun. Fun is an important part of everyday life, especially for children. Fun can be expressed in Korean music with its generous use of bright rhythms and melodies. These pieces were written with the intent of being humorous in the hopes of causing young students to laugh, smile, or feel amused. These effects are acquired through unconventional approaches to the music, such as using pizzicato throughout the entire movement of a piece, tapping on the body of the instrument with the hand, or adding a Korean twist to the Wizard of Oz.
Misook Kim received her B.A. with the honor of Cum Laude from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. After finishing her "New Star Concert" sponsored by the Cho-sun Newspaper, she entered the graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin where she completed her M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition and the certificate of piano performance. Reviewer Mike Greenberg, writing in the San Antonio Express-News, called the composer "a bold and unrepentant modernist." He also has mentioned "each of her works presented thus far has impressed with its fearless modernism, its concision and its strong individual profile."
Kim has performed as a composer as well as a pianist in various concerts of her own works from solo to larger ensemble compositions throughout the States and Korea. Including commissions for the MUSICOPIA Concert, Olmos Ensemble, she has won International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Judith Zaimont Award and the Long Island Arts Council International Composition Competition in 2007. She was a former faculty member at The University of the Incarnate Word and Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She had also served as a music director at KUMC. In Fall 2006, Kim joined the faculty at the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College, IL.
Purchase two pieces for $3
A Collection of Korean Music for Children
by Misook Kim
II. Korean Barcarolle
IV. Fun, FUNNER, Funniest
A Collection of Korean Music for Children for violin and piano is written for fun. Fun is an important part of everyday life, especially for children. Fun can be expressed in Korean music with its generous use of bright rhythms and melodies. These pieces were written with the intent of being humorous in the hopes of causing young students to laugh, smile, or feel amused. These effects are acquired through unconventional approaches to the music, such as using pizzicato throughout the entire movement of a piece, tapping on the body of the instrument with the hand, or adding a Korean twist to the Wizard of Oz.
Misook Kim received her B.A. with the honor of Cum Laude from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. After finishing her "New Star Concert" sponsored by the Cho-sun Newspaper, she entered the graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin where she completed her M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition and the certificate of piano performance. Reviewer Mike Greenberg, writing in the San Antonio Express-News, called the composer "a bold and unrepentant modernist." He also has mentioned "each of her works presented thus far has impressed with its fearless modernism, its concision and its strong individual profile."
Kim has performed as a composer as well as a pianist in various concerts of her own works from solo to larger ensemble compositions throughout the States and Korea. Including commissions for the MUSICOPIA Concert, Olmos Ensemble, she has won International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Judith Zaimont Award and the Long Island Arts Council International Composition Competition in 2007. She was a former faculty member at The University of the Incarnate Word and Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She had also served as a music director at KUMC. In Fall 2006, Kim joined the faculty at the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College, IL.
Purchase two pieces for $5
Sae-Ta-Ryung
by Eun Young Lee
Sae-Ta-Ryung is a delightful folk tune from the Namdo province describing the songs of several types of birds and imitating their flight. This work was completed at MacDowell Colony in May 2010.
Yang San Do
by Dong-Il Sheen
Yang-San-Do is a folk song from the Kyunggi Province. It originated during the late Chosun dynasty, sung by construction workers during the renovation of the Kyung Bok Palace in Seoul. Later on this tune was developed into a sun sori (folk song), sung with many variations of the verses. The rhythm of the song is in three beats.
The main melody of this piece is played by violin while the piano plays only the accompaniment. It begins with the unmodified Yang-San-Do tune to introduce the audience to the original song, before the violin melody expands to a new level as it explores the melodic variations of the theme while keeping the general, upbeat feeling of the Yang-San-Do tune.
A native of Korea, Eun Young Lee graduated from Ewha Women's University with undergraduate and graduate degrees in Music Theory. After teaching music in universities across Korea, she moved to the United States in 1999, where she did graduate studies with David Noon at the Manhattan School of Music. Currently Ms. Lee is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, where she is a recipient of the Lowell C. Wadmond Award, Doolittle Harrison Fellowship and Humanities Grant. Her current teachers include Shulamit Ran, Marta Ptaszynska, Jan Radzynski, Bernard Rands, Howard Sandroff, and Kotoka Suzuki.
Ms. Lee has won multiple awards for her music, including first prize for the Tsang-Houei Hsu International Music Composition Award; the 2008 Max Di Julio Prize at the Nevada Encounters of New Music (N.E.O.N.) Festival; Honorable Mention in Great Wall International Competition; the first regional award in the SCI/ASCAP student composition commission (2006, 2009, 2010). Additionally, she was a recipient of the MacDowell Colony and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowships, and the Gerald Oshita Memorial Fellowship for the 2010 Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Her music has been heard through Art of the States, EBU (European Broadcasting Union), and KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) programes, and is featured in the SCI Journal of Music Scores (Vol. 41) as well as CD series (No.23). Prominent ensembles including the New York New Music Ensemble, eighth blackbird, Pacifica String Quartet, ALEA III, North/South Consonance Ensemble, Timetable Percussion, and Geum-Pa Flute Ensemble have performed her music. Her instrumental pieces, multimedia pieces, computer music, and film scores were featured in festivals and concerts in many countries, including June in Buffalo, SCI Conference, SCI National Conference, MGMC, Czech-America Institute in Prague, Korean Music Expo, 60X60 Project Vox Novus, Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, Gene Siskel Film Center, Pinocoteca do estado de Sao Paulo in Brazil, and Music09 in Switzerland. In 2008 she participated in the Atlantic Center for the Arts as an Associate Artist-in-Residence to Master Artist Augusta Read Thomas.
Dong-il Sheen was born in Seoul, Korea. He was described as "a quiet revolutionary who broke the barrier of classical music" (Culture and Me magazine 2006). In a 2002 article in the New Music Composition and Critics journal, Professor Young-Han Heo of the Korean National University of Arts wrote, "Dong-il Sheen is a composer who filled the huge void in our lives with a new style of creative music. He explored music style that was ignored by other composers and now firmly established his own style."
Mr. Sheen has been active in writing music in many different styles, including western European music, traditional Korean music, children's music, film soundtracks, and musicals. He graduated Seoul National University and received his Master's degree at the New York University Graduate School of Music. He collaborated with pianist Jung Hee Han in the album Blue Bicycle, which later received a critical acclaim. He started the new style music movement "Han-ma-dang" and "Music Composers-ma-dang."
In 2002, Mr. Sheen collaborated with writer-illustrator Jae-soo Liu in the CD-Book Yellow Umbrella, which was named as one of the 10 best illustrated books by the New York Times. Japanese pianist Takako Takahashi made a CD of Mr. Sheen's music in Japan.
He received numerous awards including the Best Young Artists of the Year award from the Korean Ministry of Culture & Tourism in 2003, and the Grand Prize of the Year in composers and conductors categories from the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) in 2004.
Mr. Sheen is a board member of the Association of Korean Musicians, President of the Composer's Association (Jahk-gok-ma-dang), and Co-president of the Children's Arts Production. Currently he is a lecturer at the Korean National University of Arts and Seoul National University Graduate School of Music.
Purchase two pieces for $5
JOY of Ong-He-Ya
by Misook Kim
JOY of Ong-He-Ya (third place winner of the 2008 Sejong Music Composition Competition) is based on the Korean traditional folk tune, 'Pori-Tajak Sori', a barley threshing song from Kyung-Sang Province. The thematic elements are derived from the simple interval of a major 2nd, minor/major 3rd and perfect 4th. These two short motivic ideas, 'Ong-He-Ya' and 'Uh-Jul-Shi-Gu', keep repeating and developing as a call and response between violin and piano.
A delightful rhythmic motif personifying Korean traditional folk-tunes continues in different registers and instruments. Throughout the piece this simple and clear musical material interacts with a happy theme, representing the joyful and exciting Korean folk song.
Toad
by Jeong Kyu Park
A piece of eight variations, Toad (first place winner of the 2005 Sejong Music Composition Competition) is based on a theme derived from a Korean traditional children's song "Du-Gup-Ah, Du-Gup-Ah" (Toad, Toad). It starts with a slow tempo, gradually accelerating to finish with a strong and stormy ending.
Misook Kim received her B.A. with the honor of Cum Laude from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. After finishing her "New Star Concert" sponsored by the Cho-sun Newspaper, she entered the graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin where she completed her M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition and the certificate of piano performance. Reviewer Mike Greenberg, writing in the San Antonio Express-News, called the composer "a bold and unrepentant modernist." He also has mentioned "each of her works presented thus far has impressed with its fearless modernism, its concision and its strong individual profile."
Kim has performed as a composer as well as a pianist in various concerts of her own works from solo to larger ensemble compositions throughout the States and Korea. Including commissions for the MUSICOPIA Concert, Olmos Ensemble, she has won International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Judith Zaimont Award and the Long Island Arts Council International Composition Competition in 2007. She was a former faculty member at The University of the Incarnate Word and Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. She had also served as a music director at KUMC. In Fall 2006, Kim joined the faculty at the Conservatory of Music at Wheaton College, IL.
Jeong Kyu Park attends the Korean National University of Arts graduate school, where he has received a BM in music composition. He has studied with Sung-Ho Whang, Feliciano, and Byung-Eun Yoo. Mr. Park was the first prize winner of the 2003 Dong-A Music Competition, 2004 Tong-Young International Music Festival, 2004 Korean Chorus Music Festival, 2004 Seoul City Chorus Music Competition, and 2004 Dae-Jun City Chorus Music Competition.