About „Einfärbung“ [„colouring“]

„Friends will resemble each other“ – In Korea, the reciprocal influence of friendship is often remarked upon with this expression. Not only become good friends often alike in appearance, but over the course of their encounters also in personality. They exchange clothes and styles, thoughts and opinions, emotions and a way of speaking – their colours combine, one friend tinges the other.

I wrote the piece during the pandemic. Everybody, including me, had to suffer from this time of isolation. It made me realize how vital this mutual colouring was and gave me the starting point for my composition. The sounds between Mirjam and Rie can be irritating and confusing, because their true origin might stay unclear: Harp and Percussion are coloured by each other. This is the general idea of my piece.

From the sound experiments with Rie and Mirjam I took a set of grinding, scratching and stroking sounds – on the strings of the harp or on the surfaces of the percussion instruments – and classified them according to the position of the sound production and the material of the sound producer. The resulting sounds were additionally sorted by the attributes „wiped“, „scratchy“, „crisp“ and „dotted“. Through this analysis the character and units of the sound creation emerged, allowing to re-evaluate these properties and discover the organic relationships between the diverse sound material.

Nayoung Yuk

 

Nayoung Yuk  (*1988) began studying composition at Dankook University in her native country South-Korea, before continuing her studies with Günter Steinke at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and Oliver Schneller at Robert Schumann Conservatory in Dusseldorf. The traditional music of South-Korea keeps influencing her music, albeit in a subtle way through the use of Korean instruments or a certain colour of her sounds. In her composition process, Nayoung Yuk relies on both structure and intuition: An initial scope of the piece is being brought to life by spontaneous decisions, that have to be tied back to the plan again. A dialogue of limitation and freedom emerges.
Her works won numerous awards at international festivals and Nayoung is working with notable Ensembles such as the WDR Sinfonieorchester or the Gwangjin-Gu Womens Choir.

Photos: Isao Kanemaki