[#268] September 09, 2024
2021 | Chamber Winds | Grade 5 | 5’- 10’ | Contemporary
Loup (Wolf) by South Korean composer Selim Jeon is our Composition of the Week.
Loup was written in 2021 and it was premiered on March 10, 2022, at the Lyon Conservatory of Music, France. It has a duration of 6 minutes. This chamber music work is scored for 8 players, Clarinet, Trumpet, Horn, Trombone, Percussion, Piano, Cello, Contrabass.
"I see him satiating himself under an oak tree, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that provides his meal; and here are his needs satisfied." I feel sad to have known the difference between wildlife and that of a human who is not.
Reading the descriptions of wildlife in Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, I couldn't stop feeling sorry for the wildlife. This piece is about their lives, running, fighting, screaming, sleeping only to wake up, coming back to hurt themselves and die in a corner. The idea I have favored in this piece is rupture (silence). Paradoxically, the rupture makes us wait for what comes next, and gives us the desire to hear a continuity. I launch the two main materials of percussion (timpani) and piano. By adding a background of string sonority and brass interventions, I expand the sound space that accompanies these two main components. Then the brass interventions come to the fore, creating a climax to the first part. For the middle and final sections, I make good use of the notion of registers. I reinforce the idea of rupture I have mentioned earlier, by leading into the low register, and then at the end a great mass of sound rises into the high register.
Program notes by Selim Jeon
Selim Jeon was born in Daejeon, South Korea, in 1994.
She studied composition with Gerald Eckert, Yoonjin Kim and Youngmi Cho at Chung-Ang University in Seoul (South Korea), where she earned a bachelor's degree. She continues her education in France at the “Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris”, where she studied analysis and orchestration with Anthony Girard, and composition with Suzanne Giraud. She then joined Martin Matalon's class at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Lyon.
Selim Jeon also took part in masterclasses with Wolfgang Rhim at the “Sommerakademie Universität Mozarteum” in 2014, and Mauro Lanza at the International Divertimento Ensemble Academy in 2018.
From 2021 to 2023, she was selected for the “Académie de jeunes compositrices de l'Orchestre de chambre de Paris”. At the end of this academy, her piece Force IV - Déterritorialisation is premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet, under the direction of Rebecca Tong.
In 2022, she joined the European Creative Academy workshop supported by the Peter Eötvös Foundation, and took part in various programs with David Hudry, Stefano Gervasoni, Gregoy Vajda and Peter Eötvös.
In 2023, Selim Jeon received the Elan Prize and the Audience Prize for her orchestral piece Kiss, inspired by Freud's notion of libido and based on "sensory sound imagination and timbral blends". This award led to a joint commission from Ircam-Centre Pompidou and the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France.
The same year, she won First Prize in the Royan-Orgues Composition Competition, in the "organ and instrumental ensemble" category, with her piece “Sommeil du Ciel”.
More on Selim Jeon
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