SATB choir and piano
2015
‘Seaya Seaya (The Blue Birds)’ is my favorite Korean traditional tune. Not only is the melody beautiful, but the text is meaningful in Korean history.* Thus, it has been my long-cherished dream to compose a piece using this Korean tune and text. However, I thought that this was not enough to impress a non-Korean audience. I decided to look for text related to that of Saeya Saeya and found the story of Robin Hood, the heroic outlaw in English folklore.
This piece is divided into three sections. In the 1st and 3rd sections, I mainly used the Korean text and melodies. In the 2nd section, I composed a new melody to represent Robin Hood’s story and weaved it into Saeya Saeya.
– Eunbi Kwak
* The Korean general Bong-Joon Juhn led an unsuccessful uprising against corrupt rulers and invading Japanese troops in the late 19th century. His nickname was the Green Bean General. Legend says that he was the Korean version of Robin Hood. After attacking officials and seizing their treasures, he distributed them to the poor. He became very popular and many commoners joined his army. His army swept through large parts of the Korean peninsula before Korean rulers requested the Japanese army to intervene. Juhn’s army, equipped with spears and arrows, was no match against the westernized gun-wielding Japanese army. In 1895 Juhn was captured and hanged. Korean commoners sang this song to lament General Juhn’s death and the failed coup d’état. It is said the widows of Juhn’s army sang this song to their babies as a lullaby.
(The Sejong Cultural Society)
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