Grammy-winning Korean concert soloist Sumi Jo performs at the U-M The SeAH Korean Art Song Gala September 27 at Hill Auditorium. | Sumi Jo

“Korean music, food, and entertainment have never been more popular and global than they are now,” says Matthew Thompson, a professor and collaborative pianist at the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Thompson, whose wife is Korean and whose grandfather was awarded the Purple Heart in the Korean War, is leading the SeAH Korean Art Song Gala, to be held at Hill Auditorium on September 27. “This is a chance for attendees of any background with an interest in Korean culture to learn about the intersection of classical, Western-style music, and famous poems and texts in Korean art song.”

Heavily influenced by Western missionaries and originating in the early 1900s during Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula, Korean art song, known in Korean as gagok, is poetry set to Western-style music. Though most often performed with piano and voice, Thompson explains that Korean art song can also be performed by multiple singers, an orchestra, or a chamber group of instruments that may or may not be Western. One song Thompson often performs is for voice, piano, and daegeum, a traditional Korean flute. “One of my favorite things about Korean art song is that it tends to be very tuneful and melodic, celebrating, and well-written for the voice,” says Thompson, “so it tends to be quite enjoyable for the audience.”

Related: Koreatown in Treetown

Korean art song captures the history, hopes, and dreams of a nation with a painful past. “While these classical songs used to be played on the television and radio daily, many young Koreans today don’t know these songs or this genre of music well,” says Thompson, whose work and research have become part of a movement helping the genre enjoy a small resurgence in Korea.

Four years ago, Thompson and his students held a recital at UMMA called K-Art Song. A few months later, videos on YouTube went viral of then-student Jack Morin’s performance of “Spring Maiden,” along with footage of Thompson’s introduction of the program. Both Morin and Thompson were invited to Seoul to appear on a travel show hosted by South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Korea Invites U.

The 2022 concert performance also captured the attention of SeAH—a Korean multinational steel manufacturing conglomerate—which is sponsoring the upcoming gala.

The SeAH Korean Art Song Gala will feature student performances from every class and graduate level in the Voice & Opera program in its first half, concluding with a homecoming performance by Morin, who is now pursuing a master’s degree in voice in Saarbrücken, Germany.

The cherry on top? The second half of the show features world-renowned, Grammy-winning Korean concert soloist Sumi Jo. Over her forty-year international career, Jo has become a celebrated ambassador for Korea’s musical heritage, particularly Korean art song. Jo currently serves as artistic director of K-Gagok Superstar, an annual televised Korean vocal competition in which non-Korean singers perform Korean art songs, helping introduce gagok to a broader international audience.

“[Jo] is without doubt the most acclaimed Korean classical singer,” says Thompson. “I’m honored and delighted to bring her to Ann Arbor.”