Isang Yun was born in Sancheong, Korea in 1917 before the country split in two. He began his music education on the violin at the age of 13, and despite his father’s initial disapproval, he pursued theory, performance, and composition diligently. However, after moving to Japan to further his education, he soon found himself caught in the middle of WWII as Japanese forces began invading his homeland! He quickly returned home to assist with the Korean independence movement, during which he faced many hardships, was briefly jailed, and was even hospitalized before Korea finally gained independence from Japan in 1945. Following the war, Yun assisted with rebuilding efforts, running an orphanage and teaching music to local students.
In Yun’s compositions, he is known to combine ideas from Korean Traditional music with ideas from Western Avant-Garde composition. He uses many Korean traditional techniques, including ornamentations, percussive sounds, pizzicato, glissandi, and vibrato, giving his compositions a unique energy and flair. Due to the elaborate and abstract nature of his pieces, performing his music is a very difficult undertaking, requiring a lot of precision and virtuosity.
Having spent a large portion of his life watching his country be torn apart and divided by the events of WWII and the following Korean War, much of his music calls for peace and unity between North and South Korea. Despite the political nature of his music and lifetime, Yun says that he isn’t a “political composer but only following the voice of his consciousness.”
