TaeYoung Kwon, a doctoral student in Music Education and a Graduate Assistant for theSound Learning program at Georgia State University, recently earned top recognition at the Graduate Conference for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity on February 5, 2025. This interdisciplinary conference provides a platform for graduate students to share their work through performances, presentations, and creative displays. With the theme "Scholarship for a Better World: Empowering Change, Inspiring Action," the event highlighted innovative research and artistic endeavors aimed at fostering meaningful change.
Kwon won an award for his musical performance in the Creative Expressions category, representing the College of Education & Human Development in collaboration with the School of Music's Music Education program. His performance, Baek, GoSan – Variations of Arirang for Solo Violin: Decolonizing Emotion, explored how a traditional Korean folk melody could be reinterpreted to express post-colonial identity. Dressed in traditional Hanbok, he performed a North Korean composer’s work on a Western instrument, challenging the audience to empathize with the Korean emotion of Han (한) through their own cultural perspectives.
Kwon also participated in the poster session under the Reimagining Education category, presenting his research on "Exploring Korean Elementary Teachers' Online Community of Practice Through a Sociological Lens," which examines how digital spaces are shaping professional collaboration among educators in Korea.
We spoke with TaeYoung about his performance, the inspiration behind his research, and the broader impact of music in fostering cultural understanding.
Q: Can you tell us more about Variations of Arirang and why you chose this piece for your performance?
The piece I performed was Variations of Arirang for Solo Violin, composed by Gosan Baek, a North Korean violinist and composer. Arirang is a deeply rooted Korean folk song passed down through generations across different regions of Korea. Baek, born in Pyongyang in 1930 before the division of Korea, lived through major historical upheavals, including the Japanese colonial era and the Korean War.
In Korean culture, there is a unique emotional concept called Han (한)—a deep sense of suffering and resilience shaped by historical injustices. Arirang embodies this emotion, and Baek’s Variations of Arirang captures it through the lens of the Western violin, incorporating Korean traditional musical timbres and ornaments. I chose this piece out of curiosity about whether people from different cultural backgrounds could experience the emotions embedded in Korean music. I wanted to explore how ethnic music performed on Western classical instruments could create a cross-cultural musical experience.
Q: Your theme was “Decolonizing Emotion.” What inspired you to explore this concept through music?
One of the most influential courses for me was Dr. Gertrude Tinker Sachs’ Seminar in Teaching and Learning, where we studied Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies (2022). This course encouraged me to critically examine traditional structures in education and question binary divisions in knowledge.
In Dr. Patrick Freer’s Philosophy in Music Education course, we discussed historical divides in U.S. music education, which made me reflect on similar schisms in South Korea—particularly in curriculum design, where Western classical music and Korean traditional music are often treated as separate subjects.
A pivotal moment was discovering a Korean music textbook that combined Arirang with Amazing Grace, blending two culturally distinct melodies into a single performance. This made me question whether listeners from different backgrounds could experience Han in the same way I felt when hearing Amazing Grace. My performance was a starting point in exploring this idea.
Q: How did the audience respond to your challenge of interpreting emotion through their own cultural backgrounds?
To be honest, I didn’t have a chance to hear in-depth reflections from the audience. Most of the feedback I received was technical, with people asking, “When did you practice all those double stops?” While I can't say for certain if my musical experiment succeeded, I’d like to believe that everyone experienced similar emotional textures through the piece.
Q: What was the most meaningful part of this performance for you?
The experience itself was incredibly meaningful. I was standing on stage wearing Hanbok (traditional Korean attire), as a South Korean playing a North Korean composer’s music, in front of an audience with diverse cultural backgrounds, at one of the most diverse universities in the country. That moment felt like a powerful convergence of history, culture, and identity.
Q: What do you hope people take away from your work in music performance?
As a music educator, I hope that my students—and audiences more broadly—can develop empathy for different cultures through music. I'm particularly interested in whether emotions deeply tied to specific ethnic traditions, like Korean Han, can be understood by people from other backgrounds.
Inspired by Dr. Martin Norgaard’s Neuroscience and Music course, I’m exploring research that could empirically measure how listeners perceive emotions like Han using a Valence and Arousal Test.
On a broader level, I hope performances like this encourage people to see the beauty in blending musical traditions. Just as Arirang and Amazing Grace can harmonize, I believe music has the power to unite people across cultural divides.
Beyond his research and performance, TaeYoung Kwon is deeply engaged in music education and outreach. As a Graduate Assistant for the Sound Learning program, he helps bridge music education and community engagement, supporting initiatives that bring music into diverse learning environments.
