with the contemporary sound forum seoul (2026)

In March 2026, I performed Pierrot Lunaire with the Contemporary Sound Forum Seoul at Classica Seoul, South Korea.

Pierrot Lunaire is typically told as Arnold Schoenberg's story. But it was Albertine Zehme, actress and singer, who commissioned the work, who arrived with her own elaborate theory of the voice, and who stood on the stage in a Pierrot costume while critics struggled to describe what they heard. Her embodied knowledge, her contribution as a thinker and practitioner, has been consistently erased from musicological history. What remains is "Schoenberg's Sprechstimme".

My approach to this work begins from Zehme: from the body, from the threshold between speech and song, from the knowledge that lives in practice and resists being fully written down. The Seoul performance was not a reconstruction. It was a continuation of a question Zehme was already asking. I performed the complete work, taking on the Sprechstimme alongside the Contemporary Sound Forum Seoul, and the process taught me a great deal.

A huge thank you to everyone involved: 조우인 (curator & organizer), 장윤 (musical director & conductor), 송서연 (flute), 차다윤 (clarinet), 김영효 (bass clarinet), 임지수 (violin & viola), 조윤서 (cello), 김소원 (piano), 정보금 (design), Maira Lisa MacMillan (make up), and Anouk Otto (outfit).

This is a work I continue to live with, and I look forward to performing it again.