NEWSLETTER_Vol. 32
“Sejong's Performance Was Incandescent.”
Charles Burns, San Francisco Classical Voice
June 23, 2026
On June 20, 2026, Sejong Soloists performed at UCLA Schoenberg Hall with a program spanning the intimacy of Schumann, the haunting beauty of Lera Auerbach’s Dialogues on Stabat Mater, and the warmth and brilliance of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. The program featured guest artists Frank Huang, Che-Yen Chen, and Ji Hye Jung.
Our heartfelt thanks to The Andrew B. & Wan Kyun Rha Kim Family Foundation for its generous support, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music for co-presenting the concert, and our sold-out audience for the warm welcome from the Los Angeles community. |
© Christina Gandolfo
The Sejong Soloists are United as One at UCLA
Charles Burns, San Francisco Classical Voice
June 23, 2026
“Sejong Soloists’ performance at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall on Saturday favored elegance, balance, cohesion, and control. But by the end of the program, that control evolved to collective sway and joyful power.
The concert opened with Geoffrey Loff’s arrangement of the Adagio from Schumann’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1. It began, tellingly, as a quartet: one player per part, with a more personal, intimate sound. The texture soon melted into the more polished sonority of massed strings, establishing the kind of sound that would carry through much of the concert: unified, tasteful, expressive.
The addition of contrabasses to Schumann’s quartet texture was a curiosity, and an effective one. Tastefully appointed, they grounded the harmony with quiet strength. During one cello melody section, the basses freed the violas from the quartet-version shackles of “bass-duty” to enrich the bubbling inner texture. Above them, the cellos shaped Schumann’s characteristically beautiful melody with remarkable unanimity. It was here that Sejong’s defining strength first came fully into focus: even at greater weight, the ensemble moved together, breathed together, and seemed to feel together."
© Christina Gandolfo
