[News Culture] Korea’s ARKO Ensemble is headed to one of France’s best-known chamber music festivals, adding another major European date to a year that has already taken its young musicians from France to Belgium.
The ensemble will perform Aug. 8 and 9 at the Festival International de Musique de Chambre de Salon-de-Provence in southern France, according to Arts Council Korea, or ARKO.
Pianist Jae-Yeon Won, the project’s collaborating programmer, will be joined by cellist Danbi Lee and clarinetist Yebin Seo at the historic Château de l’Empéri.
They enter a festival lineup that includes some of classical music’s most established names, among them clarinetist Paul Meyer, pianist Éric Le Sage and flutist Emmanuel Pahud.
This year’s appearance carries added significance as Korea and France mark 140 years of diplomatic relations. ARKO Ensemble will perform Korean composer Isang Yun’s “Rencontre,” a 1986 work that draws Korean musical ideas into a Western instrumental setting.
The choice puts a distinctly Korean voice at the center of the ensemble’s French program, with a new generation of performers taking on one of Yun’s signature approaches to sound and cultural identity.
Lee begins the ensemble’s festival run on Aug. 8 with a solo recital featuring J.S. Bach’s Suite for Solo Cello No. 6 in D major, BWV 1012, and Krzysztof Penderecki’s Divertimento for Solo Cello.
The focus shifts to Seo on Aug. 9 for a chamber program featuring Yun’s “Rencontre,” Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat major, Op. 11, “Gassenhauer,” and Felix Mendelssohn’s Konzertstück No. 1 in F minor, Op. 113.
The festival closes later that night with participating musicians sharing the stage. The 9 p.m. program includes Nino Rota’s Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano.
Launched in 1993, the Salon-de-Provence festival has long brought prominent soloists together for chamber music performances in southern France. For ARKO Ensemble, the invitation places its young players in the same program as internationally established artists and gives the project one of its highest-profile festival appearances to date.
ARKO Chairman Lee Beom-heon said the organization will continue opening international performance opportunities for young artists, while using the 140th anniversary of Korea-France relations to encourage deeper cultural exchange between the two countries.
Founded in 2024 as an ARKO initiative for emerging classical musicians, ARKO Ensemble has quickly built a string of European appearances.
The group performed at the opening of France’s World AI Film Festival 2026 in April and was invited to perform at the European Parliament in Belgium in June. Salon-de-Provence now gives the ensemble another chance to put Korea’s next generation of classical musicians before a major European audience.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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