The 2003 International Festival of Women in Music Today (IFW, honorary president First Lady Kwon Yang-sook, president Lee Young-ja, honorary president of the Korean Society of Women Composers), expected to launch Korean women musicians onto the world stage and facilitate exchanges between women musicians of the world, will be opening in Seoul from April 8 to 12. Organized by the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), the IFW has been held biennially in Athens, Rome and London. For the first time in its history, the event is being held in an Asian city, Seoul, with the Korean Society of Women Composers (KSWC) acting as co-organizer.

Under the slogan 'Voices of Women Musicians,' the event boasts an unprecedented scale of some 300 women musicians from all over the world, consisting of 71 composers from 23 countries including the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and France, 238 conductors and instrumentalists, and 10 lecturers and seminar panelists. In addition, the event takes on special significance as a crossing of the East and West, new and traditional music, and as a joint creation by scholars, performers and composers of music.

The IFW will showcase the works of famous women musicians from home and abroad, including the first woman Pulitzer-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, America's famous composer Joan Tower, Taiwanese conductor Apo Hsu, Korean American composer and komunko (six-string Korean harp) player Kim Jin-hee, founder of the KSWC Lee Young-ja, Korean National University of Arts professor Kim Nam-yoon, and Yonsei University professor Lee Chan-hae. There will also be seminars dealing with the history, activities and status of women musicians.

 

​The 2003 IFW will begin at 6:30 on April 8 in the Seoul Arts Center with an opening ceremony and Joan Tower's opening concert Fanfare for the Uncommon Women. Scheduled for April 9 are Seminar I 'Are Women Musicians Today Moving from Success to Significance?' in Ehwa Women's University, Chamber Music Concert I in Kumho Art Hall, and the Korean Traditional Music Orchestra Concert by KBS in the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts. Lined up for the third day, April 10, are Seminar II 'Female Musicians in the History of Korean Traditional Music,' Concert & Workshop I on electronic music and Chamber Music Concert II 'New Music for Ethnic Instruments' in Sookmyung Women's University, plus Chamber Music Concert III in Hoam Art Hall. On April 11, Workshop II, Chamber Music Concert IV and V will be held in Yonsei University, Kumho Art Hall and Rodin Gallery respectively. And on April 12, the last day of the IFW, the organizers have planned the Country Report and Panel Discussion in Yonsei University, Chamber Music Concert VI 'New Music for Korean Traditional Instruments' at Gyeongbok Palace, plus an Operatic Theater at 6 p.m. in Hoam Art Hall as the grand finale. All profits from the opening concert will be donated to women organizations.

■ for inquiries, go to the 2003 IFW website at www.ifw.or.kr.