Sabbatical Takes Music Professor to South Korea

Professor of Music and Coordinator of Piano Studies Kent Lyman was on sabbatical during the  Fall 2017 semester. He spent all of October in South Korea on a visiting professorship at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul. He gave 30 hours’ worth of lectures and master classes to a class of 35 women pursuing a master’s degree in piano pedagogy at Sookmyung. He gave a solo recital at Sookmyung, a solo recital and master class at Ewha Women’s University (one of the largest women’s universities in the world), a solo recital at a church in Ilsan (a suburb of Seoul), and a chamber music performance with colleagues from Taejeon at the Praum Instrument Museum in Kyonggido Province.

Upon his return from Korea, he gave a solo recital performance in Carswell Concert Hall on November 17, 2017, and a week later produced a series of videos with the assistance of professional videographer Mark Manring and piano technician Darin Beery. The videos capture Lyman’s performances of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major, K. 281, and a piece entitled Pieces of Arirang, by Bang Ja Hurh, a prominent Korean woman composer. The playing of music by Korean composers that is inspired by Korean folk music is one of Lyman’s long-standing research and performance interests. The videos are available for viewing on YouTube:

Mozart performance
Hurh performance  

As a result of his sabbatical activities, Lyman has been invited back to Korea to deliver a keynote lecture at the 10^th national conference of the Korean Association of Piano Pedagogy. The conference occurs on May 19, 2018, at Sangmyung University in Seoul.