During the Seoul Festival, the world premiere of Spring Will Come Again by a South Korean composer was the highlight of a program conducted by Hankyeol Yoon.
By John Lavitt
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 06-13-2025
With a sense of quiet reverence and emotional precision, Whan Ri-Ahn’s Spring Will Come Again washed over the Walt Disney Concert Hall like the first rain after a long drought. It was not surprising that the Los Angeles Philharmonic would commission such an inspiring piece.
Presented during this year’s Seoul Festival, the composition did more than underscore the presence of a new voice in contemporary classical music. Indeed, it offered a sense of renewal combined with the loss that comes with change.
A mere twenty-nine years old, Whan Ri-Ahn is a bold composer of the new generation, who is unafraid to marry vulnerability with structure. His work draws from both traditional Korean folk melodies and avant-garde textures, creating a hybrid language that feels both ancient and utterly new. Under the assured baton of Hankyeol Yoon, the Los Angeles Philharmonic gave the piece the space and sensitivity needed to express the multiplicity of seasons.
The piece is structured as a journey through the seasons as the listener leaves behind the harshness of a stark winter to experience the tremors of spring’s first stirrings. Indeed, each movement is marked by a diversity of emotional hues.
Beyond the shimmering strings and soft winds, the piece is characterized by a wealth of musical explorations in the world of percussion. Whan Ri-Ahn includes moments for the rain sticks, Korean shaman bells, wine glasses, the buzzing bow, the thunder sheet, the suspended cymbals, and so much more. It was inspiring.
Describing the composition of the piece, Whan Ri-Ahan described his deeply personal experience of the death of his grandmother in exile from her childhood home:
“In this piece, I aimed to capture the sense of birth and return by employing shifting harmonic structures, such as the circle of fifths and pentatonic modes. These elements transform and evolve throughout the work, like branches of trees, reflecting the cyclical and ever-changing nature of the seasons.
I imagined the orchestra not just as a canvas, but as a multidimensional space—where sounds travel from one space to another, constantly shifting and transforming. In that space, I traced both the landscape of spring and the inner world of my grandmother, her quiet yearning for the spring that never came. Whether spring truly arrives or whether we remain in winter is left open—much like my grandmother’s longing to return home, which was never answered.”
The heart of the work, in its middle section, allowed for layered harmonics and subtle dissonances, creating an aching liminality between grief and hope. Hankyeol Yoon, whose reputation for interpreting contemporary music with energetic passion is well-earned, resisted the temptation to overemphasize its poignancy.
Such restraint made the final resolution all the more cathartic: a rising crescendo across the percussive instruments, echoed gently in brass, that seemed to echo hope. Indeed, no matter what we lose and how deeply we mourn in winter, spring will come again.
For those present, Whan Ri-Ahn’s premiere was not just a concert. It was a reminder of renewal, of the change of seasons as winter passes, and of the eternal promise of spring. Speaking about the young composer during an interview with Arnaud Merlin in Berlin, Unsuk Chin, the curator of the Seoul Festival at the LA Phil, remarked, “I see a great future emerging for Whan Ri-Ahn: he is brilliant.”
