Composer Yejin Kwon shares some background & the process behind this month's featured piece.
JANCHI
A Korean word for celebrating life
JANCHI, the title of my album and its title piece, embodies the life I aspire to live.
As I enter middle age, I remain fascinated by the diversity of human lives and emotions, which even all the colours of a prism could never fully describe. The more I came to understand others, the more clearly I began to see who I was. Harmony and sharing gradually became essential to me.
In Korea, a janchi is a celebration where everyone's stories come together. People eat, drink, and dance. Some get drunk, others burst into tears; someone offers comfort, while others overflow with joy. Everyone has a place at this celebration.
Studying music in Korea, France, and Canada, I felt my sense of self growing stronger as my world expanded. Looking at a painting by my favourite artist, Henri Matisse, hanging above my dining table, I
dreamed of joining that dance.
Old and new, Matisse and Korean folk art, the forbidden and the free, each distinct, yet moving within the same dance.
For the album cover, I reimagined Matisse's Dance through minhwa, traditional Korean folk painting. People, nature, and cultures dance together beyond the boundaries of East and West. I cannot realize this ideal alone, but I believe we can achieve it together.
For this musical feast, I brought out some kimchi I had left to ferment for years, a traditional Korean dish whose flavours deepen with time. With my own touch in the kitchen, I prepared three varieties: the album's three pieces.
Yoohaeng-ga means "a popular song" in Korean. I write the music I love, but I also desperately want to reach more listeners. While composing, I kept thinking: please, become popular! Combining traditional Korean instruments with electronic music gave me a wonderful sense of liberation, as though other people's opinions suddenly no longer mattered. This piece later inspired my orchestral work Tantara, which I approached with a somewhat more serious attitude.
Stars, Moon, and a Child and JANCHI began with melodies that came to me so long ago I can hardly remember when. Rearranged for this album, they found new life. JANCHI, in particular, was transformed almost beyond recognition. It is my identity as a composer, expressed in music.
JANCHI = Yejin Kwon.
On July 24, 2026, in Seoul, we recorded these two pieces with traditional Korean instruments, percussion, flute, two violins, cello, and piano. My imagined celebration came to life in sound.
But bringing a musical world into existence requires far more than composing. We must also become managers and producers. The title "composer" describes only the most essential part of our profession. Yet it is there, between the hell and heaven of composing, that composers find salvation and grant their
music eternal life.
Live long, dear Music.
Carry within you my passion, love, hope, and sincerity.
As for me, I will make my life one long janchi, hand in hand with others, sharing the joys of nature, culture, and dance.
