The Korean Experimental Music Festival

Matt Schumaker, Festival Director

The National Gugak Center—Korea’s foremost institution for traditional music—joined forces with the Bay Area’s acclaimed Del Sol String Quartet to offer audiences a rare and resonant experience. The festival blended traditional Korean musical practices, Western classical instrumentation, and cutting-edge music technology in the world premieres of a nineteen newly commissioned works by faculty and graduate-student composers from UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, and Stanford.

Two concerts featured a first-of-its-kind ensemble pairing two gayageum—Korea’s zither-like plucked instrument—with a Western string quartet. In two additional performances, traditional Korean wind instruments—the piri, saenghwang, and daegeum—were transformed through real-time computer sound processing into striking electroacoustic sound worlds.

The creative direction of the 2025 Korean Experimental Music Festival was a labor of love and collaboration, with Festival Director Matthew Schumaker (UCSC) joined by co-organizers Edmund Campion (UC Berkeley), Ben Carson (UCSC), Jarosław Kapuściński (Stanford), Cindy Cox (UC Berkeley) and many others, built on the inimitable vision of UC Santa Cruz Music Professor Hi Kyung Kim.

The festival culminated a two-year collaboration between the National Gugak Center, the UC Santa Cruz Music Department, UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), and Stanford’s Department of Music and Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).

These concerts featured new music shaped by deep intercultural dialogue and inspired by the enduring legacy of traditional Korean music.

All concerts were free and open to the public.

Musicians from the National Gugak Center Creative Orchestra: piri — Chi-Wan Park, Kyu-Soo Lim; saenghwang — Bo-Mi Kim; daegeum — Pil-Ki Lee; gayageum — Ji-Hye Lee, Se-Youn Park, Ji-eun Lee; Del Sol String Quartet — Charlton Lee, Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Benjamin Kreith, Kathryn Bates; Guest Conductor — David Milnes

  • Concert 1 (UC Berkeley) — Tue., Nov. 11, 7:00 p.m. · Wu Hall (125 Morrison Hall) Works by Siamak Barghi, Nina Barzegar, Ben Dorfan, Michael J. Fleming, Maisha Lani, Christopher Everingham, and Jinwei Sun.

  • Concert 2 (UC Berkeley) — Wed., Nov. 12, 12:00 p.m. · Hertz Hall (“Noon Concert”) Works by Jean Ahn, Edmund Campion, Ben Leeds Carson, and Cindy Cox.

  • Concert 3 (UC Berkeley) — Wed., Nov. 12, 4:00 p.m. · Wu Hall (125 Morrison Hall) Works by Michael J. Fleming, David Evan Jones, Mathew Muntz, and Dion Nataraja.

  • Concert 4 (UC Berkeley) — Wed., Nov. 12, 7:00 p.m. · Wu Hall (125 Morrison Hall) Works by Edmund Campion, David Evan Jones, Jarek Kapuściński, Matt Schumaker and Ken Ueno.

  • Concert 5 (UC Santa Cruz) — Fri., Nov. 14, 5:00 p.m. · Music Center Recital Hall. Works by Barghi, Barzegar, Dorfan, Fleming, Lani, Everingham, and Sun.

  • Concert 6 (UC Santa Cruz) — Fri., Nov. 14, 8:00 p.m. · Music Center Recital Hall. Works by Ahn, Campion, Carson, and Cox.

  • Concert 7 (UC Santa Cruz) — Sat., Nov. 15, 5:00 p.m. · Music Center Recital Hall. Works by Fleming, Jones, Muntz, and Nataraja.

  • Concert 8 (UC Santa Cruz) — Sat., Nov. 15, 8:00 p.m. · Music Center Recital Hall. Works by Campion, Jones, Kapuściński, Schumaker and Ueno.

  • Concert 9 (Stanford / CCRMA) — Sun., Nov. 16, 3:00 p.m. · CCRMA. Works by Fleming, Jones, Muntz, and Nataraja.

  • Concert 10 (Stanford / CCRMA) — Sun., Nov. 16, 7:00 p.m. · CCRMA. Works by Campion, Jones, Kapuściński, Schumaker and Ueno.