The Korea Festival Ensemble, founded in 1986, is the most distinguished chamber music society in the Republic of Korea. The members are fifty of Korea's leading professional musicians including principal players of major orchestras and professors of universities. They form a variable combination of two string quartets, a woodwind quintet, a brass quintet, double-bass, harp, six pianists and percussion allowing for a diverse performance of chamber music repertoire.

Each year the Ensemble organizes a Spring Festival featuring selected chamber music of one major composer (such as Mozart, Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn or Brahms), a Summer Festival held at the National Museum of Modern Art in the resort town of Kwachon, and the popular Twentieth-Century Contemporary Music Festival in the Winter.

In 1988 the Korea Festival Ensemble was invited by the French Ministry of Culture to perform in Paris. In 1991 a tour of U.S.A included performances at the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center in Washington, New York's Carnegie Hall and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Also there has been a tour to Japan, Hong Kong, Germany.

Honorable Awards from the Music Critic's Association of Korea and the National Museum of Modern Art,frequent television and radio broadcasts and numerous tours of major cities in Korea have established the Korea Festival Ensemble as a unique chamber music society of the highest reputation. The program ranged from easily approachable short pieces to more abstruse works such as Ligeti's Six Bagatelles for Woodwind quintet the concert began with works by Haydn and included those by contemporary composers still living today.

The performers showed outstanding ability and, combined with their conscientious preparation, produced a unified sound and expressed a very impressive and creative interpretation of the works.

KOREA FESTIVAL ENSEMBLE
2F, 180, Dongil-ro Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, Korea
Tel.501-8477, 8478 / Fax.501-8479