Junsang Bahk is a celebrated Korean composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, also active in Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

Bahk studied composition at the Graduate School, Seoul National University

Seoul National University

Seoul National University , colloquially known in Korean as Seoul-dae , is a national research university in Seoul, Korea, ranked 24th in the world in publications in an analysis of data from the Science Citation Index, 7th in Asia and 42nd in the world by the 2011 QS World University Rankings...

, where he received a Master of Music Degree in 1965.
An Austrian government stipend enabled him to study composition from 1967 to 1973 at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, with Hanns Jelinek

Hanns Jelinek

Hanns Jelinek was an Austrian composer of Czech descent who is also known under the pseudonym Hanns Elin....

 and Alfred Uhl

Alfred Uhl

Alfred Uhl was an Austrian composer, violist, music teacher and conductor.-Biography:Uhl studied with Franz Schmidt at the Vienna Music Academy, receiving a diploma in composition with honours in 1932. He subsequently worked as Kapellmeister of the Swiss Festspielmusik in Zürich...

, twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...

 with Jelinek und Erich Urbanner

Erich Urbanner

Erich Urbanner is an Austrian composer and teacher.-Biography:Urbanner studied from 1955 to 1961 at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, in the composition classes of Karl Schiske and Hanns Jelinek, as well as studying piano with Grete Hinterhofer and conducting with Hans Swarowsky...

, electronic music and modern music with Friedrich Cerha

Friedrich Cerha

Friedrich Cerha is an Austrian composer and conductor.-Biography:Cerha was born in Vienna.He received his education at the Viennese Music Academy and at the University of Vienna...

. He graduated with Distinction in 1973. In 1968 and 1970 he took part in the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

, in Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

's composition studios, and later in György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

's composition seminar. Subsequently he studied musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of Vienna, where he received a Ph.D. in 1991 with a dissertation titled "Die Auswirkungen der Volksliedforschung auf das kompositorische Schaffen von Béla Bartók".

In 1969 in Seoul, together with Isang Yun

Isang Yun

Isang Yun was a Korean-German composer originally from Korea. According to his official publisher's Boosey & Hawkes biography of him, he was granted political asylum by West Germany, eventually becoming a naturalised German citizen, following his abduction and torture in 1967 by the South Korean...

, Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....

, and Sukhi Kang, he helped organize the "Biennale for Contemporary Music", where new Western music was performed for the first time in Korea (Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

, Herbert Eimert

Herbert Eimert

Herbert Eimert was a German music theorist, musicologist, journalist, music critic, editor, radio producer, and composer.-Life:...

, John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati

Roman Haubenstock-Ramati

Roman Haubenstock-Ramati was a composer and music editor who worked in Kraków, Tel Aviv and Vienna.Haubenstock-Ramati studied composition, music theory, violin and philosophy in Kraków and Lemberg from 1937 to 1940. Among his teachers were Artur Malawski and Józef Koffler. From 1947 to 1950 he was...

, etc.).

His compositions have won many important prizes, including the Korean National Prize for Composition (1980), First Prize of the Korean Information Ministry (1964), and the Kompositionspreis des Grazer Musikprotokolls (1973 and1975).

Works (selective list)

• Mark, for piano (1971)
• Seak I, for chamber ensemble (1971)
• Echo for wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn)
• Invokation, for dancing soprano, bass clarinet, and percussion (1977)
• Chunhyang Chon (The Tale of the Maiden Chunhyang), opera, to a libretto by the composer (1985)
• Sublim for orchestra (1987)
• Trans-Danza (Utdari Pungmul) for violin and piano (2005)
• Mozartiana, for violin and piano (2006)