Korea-Bangladesh cultural exchange

Strings of a violin were touched with a bow. A gentle but shimmering sound emerged. The phone of some other strings of voila plucked with fingers joined behind. A cello began to deliver a galloping groove as the bowing ascended. The reeds of a piano did the rest! The precise dance of fingers on the black and white keys of the king of instruments brought a unity to the whole sound, and a night with a hall full of spectators was mesmerised with the sound of music.

“Ensemble Forever”, a Korean Western Classical music team brought such delight to listeners' ears in a programme titled “Korea- Bangladesh Cultural Exchange 2017” on Wednesday night at Shah Alam Bir Uttam Auditorium in Chittagong.

The event enabled the audiences of Chittagong to listen to Western classical music performance live. The group started their performance with their rendition of “Four Seasons”, a famous classical piece by Antonio Vivaldi.

With several movements of the piece to showcase four different seasons through music, the performer's action with his instrument helped the audiences to relish the fragrance of the seasons through the sound.

Then came down- Johann Sebastian Bach. The seventeenth century composer's precious music “Air” was performed by the violin front-man Bang Hyojoon.

All these musical nuances reached their prime while a beautiful doprano vocal immerged in the scene. Kim Eun Soo, dazzled listeners by performing 'Lacia Chio Pianga'- an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel and 'Summer Time'- a standard song performed by jazz and classical musicians.

As the spectators were getting  immersed in the sophisticated form of music, suddenly everyone bounced on their seats-  from where Tom Cruise came!

The group had a real sense of humour indeed! As they finished performing some of the famous classical pieces, the theme of “Mission Impossible” exploded with the strike of bows on the four strings. It was really a marvellous attempt to remind the audience about the music-- it is not just a movie score, it is a famous piece by Argentine pianist Lalo Schifrin.

The night went by with such other performances. Mentionable of these was the singing of Park Day Young, a baritone voice.

He came down from the stage and walked the spectators' aisle while singing 'Toreador Song', a song of a bull-fighter.

A vocal duet was also performed by Kim Eun Soo and Park Day Young as they sang and danced over the stage with the music of piano.

The team finished the night with a rendition of the famous Bengali song “Ami Banglay Gaan Gai. A breeze of emotion blew over the listeners as the tune was played on a violin.

Bengali Sufi band “Aswad”, who performed at the first phase of the night joined the last song.  It was as if music of two different regions merged together and brought gratification to the souls, which were paying their entire attention to the melody.

The Ambassador of Republic of Korea to Bangladesh Ahn Seong-doo was present at the programme.