SEOUL, December 18 (Yonhap) -- Young performers such as Lim Yoon-chan won a series of world-class competitions in 2022, showing their potential to the point where the word "K-classical" was made.

In addition to Hallyu in popular culture such as K-pop, movies, and dramas, Koreans have also been active in classical music, webtoons, musicals, and publications, confirming the potential of Korea's culture.

◇ Lim Yoon-chan, Choi Ha-young, Yang In-mo, and Lee Hyuk won competitions one after another

This year, young performers brought up good news one after another at major competitions.

The performer who received the most attention was definitely pianist Lim Yoon-chan (18, Korea National University of Arts).

Lim won the 16th Van Cliburn International Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, in June. He was the youngest winner in the 60-year history of this competition, and was the second consecutive Korean winner following Yekwon Sunwoo in the previous competition in 2017.

Lim Yoon-chan's performance at the Cliburn Competition received special attention, being selected by New York Times (NYT) as one of the "Top 10 Classic Performances of the Year."

Cellist Choi Ha-young (24) also won the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Belgium in June. The competition is considered one of the world's top three music competitions along with the Chopin Piano Competition and the Tchaikovsky Competition. The cello category was newly established in 2017 and was the second competition.

Violinist Yang In-mo (27) won the Jean Sibelius International Violin Competition in May as the first Korean. Prior to it, Yang In-mo also won the Paganini violin competition in 2015, being commented as "Young Maestro."

Lee Hyuk (22), tied for first place in the piano category at the Long-Thibaud international competition in November. He is the first Korean winner in 21 years since Lim Dong-hyuk (who won in 2001) in the piano category of the competition, which is considered one of France's most prestigious competitions.

Han Jae-min (16, Korea National University of Arts.), a "cello prodigy," also topped the ISANGYUN COMPETITION held in Tongyeong in November. The ISANGYUN COMPETITION started in 2003 to honor Yoon I-sang, a world-renowned composer from Tongyeong.

Intensive gifted education and full support from parents are cited as the reasons why young Korean performers are doing well in international competitions.

The Korean National University of Arts (Han Ye-jong), which advocates practical professional art education, is one of the main reasons. Lim Yoon-chan and Han Jae-min are representative talents from Han Ye-jong a mong the winners who received attention this year.

Han Ye-jong Music Center is a system that discovers young performers who show outstanding talent and provides intensive apprenticeship education focusing on practical skills. It is also notorious for having a lot of test songs every semester. For example, The practical test by itself takes more than a week as students have to perform a solo program for about 40 minutes in the case of piano.

Several young musicians have made brilliant achievements on the international stage this year, but some have voiced caution against excessive clinging to the competition.

From criticism that it is essentially impossible to determine superiority in art to voices of concern that some talented performers who appeared through a competition could lose the power to pioneer his career after being shaken by excessive attention from the surroundings.

Choi Eun-kyu, a classical columnist, a former performer, pointed out, "The management system that manages and supports the performer should be elaborated, as in some cases. a performer's talent is consumed too quickly after winning a competition."

◇ Creative musicals knocking on the door of overseas markets...Expectations for "Musical Hallyu"

More and more domestic creative musicals are trying to challenge overseas markets. The musical "Gwangju," which deals the incident of May 18, held their showcase in Broadway, New York, the home of the musical. Broadway composer Andy Roninson directed the music, Andrew Rasmussen who produced the musical "Rocky Horror Picture Show," produced it, featuring 15 local actors.

The license of the Korean creative musical "Marie Curie" will be exported to Japan,and it will be performed from March until April in Tokyo and Osaka with Japanese actors and staff. It will star Japanese top musical actor Manaki Reika as the main character, and will be directed by Yumi Suzuki, who won the Yomiuri Theater Award three times for Outstanding Director. The creative musical "Crash Landing on You" based on the drama is also trying to enter Japan.

There are also works that signed a copyright contract with an overseas production company even before it premiered in Korea. "Human Court" has signed a Chinese copyright contract with Chinese musical production company Focus Stage.

Experts emphasize that in order for the "Musical Hallyu" to spread further, a system in which creative performances are systematically verified and supplemented after premiere must be established first.

Professor Won Jong-won of Soonchunhyang University said, "Unlike dramas and movies where completed works are distributed as they are, musicals that are broadcast live need a step-by-step market that advances to the next stage of the market while verifying their completeness."

◇ "Webtoon instead of Manga"...grand prize in the United States

2022 was a year when cartoon-style webtoons made in Korea made strides internationally.

As a representative example, Naver Webtoon "Lore Olympuss" received three awards this year, including the Eisner Award, the "Oscars of the Cartoon World," as well as the Harvey and Ringo Awards.

The author of this work is Rachel Smyth from New Zealand, discovered by Naver Webtoon directly on the amateur creative platform canvas.

Webtoons illustrated by Koreans are also being nominated for world-class cartoon awards. Choi Kyu-seok's "Hellbound" was named in the official competition section of the 50th Angoulême International Comics Festival which will be held in January next year. Nabillera ( by Hun, Jimin writer), where a young man in his 20s and an old man in his 70s communicate through ballet, was nominated for the Eisner Award but couldn't win the prize.

Webtoons, a format that appeared spontaneously in Korea, have the strength of being optimized for mobile devices because they are a method of scrolling vertically.

The Economist, a British weekly magazine, also evaluated that Japan's "Manga" is losing its light and Korean webtoons are emerging instead.

Literary people also confirmed the possibility of "published Hallyu."

Picture book writer Lee Soo-ji was the first Korean to receive the Hans Christian Andersen Award, called as the Nobel Prize in children's literature, in March. Writer Jung Bo-ra was also recognized for her work in Korean genre literature as she was nominated for the British Booker Prize International with her novel "Cursed Rabbit" in April.

(This article is translated from Korean to English by Dowon Kim.)


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