Radio orchestra’s tour of South Korea comes to close
Standing ovations, chanting and clapping to the rhythm of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances during the encores accompanied the close of a Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (PRSO) tour in the South Korean city of Gumi on Friday. During the tour, the orchestra performed a total of five concerts in Seoul, Busan and Gumi.
The well-known assertion that the further south you go on the Korean Peninsula, the more warmth and openness you find was borne out during the final concert of the PRSO’s tour on Friday. The audience in Gumi in the east of the country were completely overwhelmed by Smetana’s Vltava, the overture of the opera the Marriage of Figaro and Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano No. 5 in E-flat Major. During encores at the end of the evening they spontaneously clapped along to the rhythm.
In seven days, the musicians of the PRSO performed five concerts at four venues, in Seoul, Busan and Gumi City. The second of the Seoul concerts on Wednesday, June 1 was broadcast live by KBS public service radio and on the local station SEN TV. Under the baton of conductor Petr Vronský and featuring the Russian pianist Konstantin Shcherbakov, the orchestra played – as well as the pieces already mentioned – Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony in G Major, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, and Rachmaninoff‘s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor.
“I’m very glad that our musicians’ long planned and demanding tour met with such great success in Korea. It again confirms the quality of the radio orchestra, which thanks to its high professional standards spreads the good name of Czech Radio both at home and far beyond the borders of our country. One result of such activities is Czech Radio’s prominent position within the framework of the European Broadcasting Union,” says the general director of the PRSO Jan Simon.
