Anatomy of Naturophilia (2025)
Duration cir.15 mins
Instrumentation Mezzo, STAB chorus, fl, cl, perc, vn, vc, db, elect
Premiered by Lea Shaw, members from the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir, RCS players and Connor Bristow on electronics. Conducted by Derrick Morgan. April 29, 2025 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Stevenson Hall.
Opportunity brought by winning Craig Armstrong Prize 2024.
Programme Note
This piece started from my curiosity and passion for dramatic music and creating theatrical devices through composing. I especially experimented with the relationship between chorus and soloists. Subject matter wise, I gathered texts that are about elemental forces - soil, sun, water etc.. - that can recall human’s connection with nature which could lead to recognising our soul.
Each section has a distinctive character based on the elements from the text: the first section starts with being under the soil and gradually rises up by the wheel of the Earth until it is eventually covered by the flame of the sun (‘solis flama’). Second section is suggesting this striking imagery where the Korean poet Chonggi Mah overlaps the hot blood that flows inside a human's vein and the feuding volcanic mountain. Third section is about water, but it shows two contrasting waters in their character - one is water that doesn’t tremble, still and heavy and the other one is water that trembles, fully and brightly sounding. Lastly, the final section set out a mystic sky where nature, human and soul meet and disperse.More information on the premiere performance
Solo Mezzo-soprano Lea Shaw
Chorus Sophie Rintoul, Rachel Taylor, Esther Lee, Jeanne Laborde, Philip Scott, Alasdair Robertson, Kenneth Tay, Joseph McGlynn
Flute Molly Gribbon
Clarinet Bb Lily Chrisp
Violin Ines Soares
Cello Ursula Coe
Double Bass Callum Cronin
Percussion Andrew Murphy
Electronics Connor Bristow
Conducted by Derrick Morgan
Electronic part Tylor Zwink, Gilda Parlatto Lire, Joseph McGlynn
The Eyes Outlasts the Tears (2024)
Duration cir.9 mins
Instrumentation 2,2,2,2 - 4,2,3(b-trb),1 - timp,2 perc - hp, pno - strings
Programme Note
This piece is largely based on my personal emotional journey, reflecting the experience through the lens of T. S Eliot’s poem ‘Eyes that I saw in tears’. The main emotion I wanted to express through music was an emotional conflict after the parting. The line “I see the eyes but not the tears” and “The eyes outlast a little while, a little while outlast the tears” suggested to me the division of space between the space where one has to go through the grief by oneself (in their private space) and the space where they re-encounter in public - where the eyes don’t show (or can’t show) the ‘tears’. I thought this emotional responsibility or an emotional conflict could be effectively delivered through sound. Eve Speaks (2024)
For Soprano, Violin, Cello & Piano
Duration cir.10 mins
Premiered by Hebrides Ensemble and Soprano Stephanie Lamprea. May 3rd 2024, at the 2024 PLUG festival. An opportunity brought by the Walter and Dinah Wolfe Composition Prize 2023 (runner-up).
Programme Note
This piece is delivered through the biblical female figure Eve’s perspective. Whenever I come across Eve in a biblical context, I feel like she is a female ancestor that I can relate a bit more to. However, although she is honoured as mother of humanity in Christian context, she is also scorned for her original sin. And I had a feeling that she had never got a chance to speak. As I encountered African American writers such as Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston, I was attracted by how they used biblical symbolism and images into their writings which carried a symbolic weight in the creative works. The female protagonists in their novels are often bound to a place and they are challenged to escape in order to seek their true self, often through a knowledge obtained by transgression - recalling Eve from the bible. I was inspired by how Eve was interpreted differently in their works, as a person who is passionate about her own personal growth, redemption and deliverance which made me write words and compose music.TEXT
I stand in the garden, plastered by
the green comfort that blinded me.
I felt the warmth, the forbidden vermilion.
My teeth cracked the golden flesh,
tasted the liquid that unlocked my eyes.
The apple.
Unveiled, I walked away from the garden
And crossed the river, the father’s voice swallowed up
by the white water noise.
I entered the city
where the metal crane overlooks.
My ears began to listen,
and reached beyond what can be seen.
I broke the voices of the stubborn anonymous,
and salvaged the voice of ‘I’ inside of 'I.
“Eve” I call my name,
like a mother calls her child.
Soft and gentle touch brushes my skin
through the amorphous vision of your hand
It convinces me to go out to the sea
again and again.
I will walk into the grey gust,
into the active nebulous waste land;
with crystaline intensity
Seyoung Oh. Jan 2024
A Possible Journey of a Stellar Magnetic Field (2023)
Duration cir.7 mins
Instrumentation flu, Bb cla/ bass cla & vln
Premiered at the St Andrews Intersection concert series
Programme Note
This piece manifests an imagined journey of a magnetic field that travels through a star which started with the collaboration project with the astronomist Clara Brasseur, a researcher from St Andrews university, who studies about stellar magnetic fields. In this piece, I looked for general traits of star structure in relation to the magnetic fields in order to provide experience to the listeners that could be potentially useful and accessible. The inner core, which is a centre of inner layers, is the place where the journey of magnetic field would start - the place where enormous gravity presses particles and the friction with the extreme heat causes hydrogen fusion. Then, the magnetic field would travel outward towards the atmosphere - during this process temperature of the surroundings goes down, density decreases. The surface of the inner layers/start of the outer layer (atmosphere) is ‘photosphere’ where convection movements pushes particles to the surface and when they get cooler, they sink down again into the inner layer. After magnetic field passes photosphere (and chromosphere), the temperature of air drastically goes up until it reaches the ‘corona’ - the hottest part of outer layer where the exuberant stellar flares explodes massive energy. After the magnetic field reaches the corona, it starts the journey back to the inner core again. In the process of composing, I derived ideas for the each section based on the research of each star layer’s composition and the principle of activities and tried musical materials manifest those physical activities. By experiencing the music, I hope listeners can join the journey of a magnetic field and feel the existence of starts, their energetic strive in order to sustain life (constant fusing) and the numerous, constant cycles of magnetic fields which is happening right now above our heads. 
Invisible Land of Love (2022)
Duration cir.3 mins
Instrumentation SATB choir
Premiered by the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir on the 21st of June, 2023. At the Glasgow University chapel.
Programme Note
This piece is about the search for love, regardless of form, subject or context, the search that one might do throughout the life in order to find the meaningful love. Therefore, the piece is not about being skeptical on love but suggests that love is not visible ‘yet’ and the journey continues.
The piece was inspired by the exhibition under the same title by Korean artist Ahn Kyuchul where he quoted the title from Chonggi Mah’s poem. I combined the title with the poem ‘The Everlasting Voices’ by W. B. Yeats.
Text: Chonggi Mah, W. B. Yeats
Invisible land of love
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still;
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold
And bid them wander obeying your will,
Flame under flame, till Time be no more;
Have you not heard that our hearts are old,
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.
Invisible land of love
Life in the Pendulum Motion (2022)
Duration cir.11 mins
Instrumentation Solo cello & tape
Premiered by cellist Lebekah Lesan