[News Culture] A strike is only one way to make percussion speak. Sound can be scraped from a surface, drawn out through friction or set loose with a shake. Metal shivers, wood answers in dry pulses, and stretched skin sends low vibrations through the air. In the hands of percussionist Jiyeon Kim, these physical gestures become the raw material of music.
Her recital “SCRATCH DATA: A Record of the Leap” ventures into this territory, where movement becomes sound and sound becomes information. Rather than treating percussion simply as an instrument of rhythm, Kim explores its surfaces, textures and resonances through the vocabulary of contemporary music.
The program brings together R. Sendo’s “Scratch Data,” K. Brunt’s “Cold Tingle of Infinity,” Jaeduck Kim’s “Han-Puri Ⅱ,” P. Jodlowski’s “I.T” and A. Müllenbach’s “Terra X.” Commissioned for the recital, “Han-Puri Ⅱ” will receive its world premiere, while the remaining four works will be heard in Korea for the first time.
“Scratch Data,” the work that gives the recital its name, provides a key to the entire program. Here, the surface of an instrument becomes a field of rhythmic possibility. The speed of a scrape, the pressure of contact and the area touched all shape the resulting sound, as though physical gestures were being recorded and translated into musical data. What emerges is not simply rhythm, but sound stripped down to texture.
“Cold Tingle of Infinity” turns that physicality into sensation. Short attacks splinter and vanish; sustained resonances seem to stretch the dimensions of the room. The music draws attention to what happens after the initial sound — the chill of a fading resonance, the vibration suspended at the threshold of silence.
At the heart of the recital is the world premiere of “Han-Puri Ⅱ.” The title invokes two deeply rooted Korean ideas: han, an accumulation of unresolved emotion, and puri, the act of release. Yet the work avoids simply reproducing the gestures or vocabulary of traditional Korean music. Instead, it searches for another route into that emotional landscape, using pressure, breath and the primal force of percussion to move from tension toward catharsis.
Composer Jaeduck Kim studied at the Geneva University of Music in Switzerland and at music universities in Stuttgart and Cologne, Germany. He has since developed an active career working with contemporary music ensembles on commissioned works.
The sonic palette shifts again in P. Jodlowski’s “I.T,” where bass clarinetist Sungyoon Jung joins Kim. Percussion and bass clarinet operate through fundamentally different forms of physical energy — one driven by impact and contact, the other by breath. Their encounter brings together the bass clarinet’s grainy low register, clicking keys and air-laced tones with the harder materiality of percussion, creating a dialogue built as much from noise and friction as from conventional pitch.
Jung earned his master’s degree from the Conservatoire de Paris and currently serves as principal bass clarinet of KT Chamber.
“Terra X” pushes the recital from solo territory into a broader chamber landscape. Percussionist Lukas Zeuner joins Kim alongside violinists Soyeon Lee and Haeun Choi, violist Seohyun Lee and cellist Sungjin Park.
Low cello tones meet the physical vibration of the bass drum, while the abrasive edge of bow hair against strings is placed alongside the friction sounds of percussion. Rather than assigning strings and percussion separate roles, the work allows their textures to collide and merge, building a three-dimensional field of sound on a chamber-music scale.
The ensemble brings together musicians active across Korea and Europe. Zeuner is deputy principal percussionist of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Soyeon Lee serves as third concertmaster of the Ulm Philharmonic, while Haeun Choi is a first violinist with the Bergische Symphoniker. Seohyun Lee is a tenured violist with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Sungjin Park serves as principal cellist of the Chungbuk Provincial Symphony Orchestra.
Kim’s own career has long moved between orchestral precision and the exploratory possibilities of solo percussion. A graduate of Sunhwa Arts High School and Seoul National University College of Music, she went on to complete the Konzertexamen program at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart.
She became the first Korean winner of the percussion division at the Jeju International Wind Ensemble Festival Competition and has placed at international competitions in Belgium, Finland, the United States and Luxembourg.
Her work as a soloist with orchestras across Europe has continued to test how far percussion can stand on its own as a concert instrument. In Korea, she has appeared with leading ensembles and at major events including the Tongyeong International Music Festival and the Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra. She currently performs as a percussionist with the Going Home Project and holds a tenured position as deputy principal timpanist of the Ulm Philharmonic.
“SCRATCH DATA” ultimately asks listeners to hear percussion before it becomes rhythm — as friction, vibration, pressure and movement. Across solo works and chamber combinations, Kim turns the stage into a laboratory of physical sound, tracing the point where the body, the instrument and the ensemble begin to speak the same language.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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