At the colloquium of the Music Team of the Center for Modern Korean Studies held on February 20 at 2 p.m., two presentations addressed intercultural compositional practice and women’s authorship in music from transcultural perspectives.

In the first presentation, Professor Lee Hyejin (Sungshin Women’s University) examined bicultural instrumentation in contemporary Korean creative music through works by Koo Bon-woo, focusing on how Western and Korean elements coexist within a single compositional framework. The talk emphasized dialogue and mutual respect between traditions as a defining feature of contemporaneity.

In the second presentation, Madlen Poguntke (Seoul National University) explored the historical construction of the concepts of “composition” and “composer” through a transcultural comparison between Germany and South Korea. Referring to figures such as Hildegard von Bingen, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Younghi Pagh-Paan, the presentation called for a broader understanding of musical authorship beyond established institutional frameworks.

The colloquium offered an opportunity to reconsider how voice, coexistence, and authorship are understood in contemporary musical discourse.