Painting the Mountain
For Violin and Gayageum
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Duration
5:30
Premiere
March 29th, 2026
Eunsun "Sunny" Jung (Gayageum)
Wilson Li Wen Jun (Violin)
Jayson Reimer (Cover Art)
Movements
Single-Movement
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31, KJV) This verse in particular always spoke to me as a statement to the divinity of nature, a divinity that humanity has taken for granted since our advent. In “Painting the Mountain”, I aim to evoke this natural divinity by likening our ever shifting natural world to the eternal world of a canvas as it’s slowly filled with thousands of brushstrokes that carry each minute gesture of a divine artist.
The piece’s primary melody is an interpolation of the many East Asian folk melodies I’ve heard throughout my studies and travels. It’s purpose is meditative; it’s a repetitious chant that focuses the mind back onto the brush, even in moments when chaotic strokes rule the canvas.
The Gayageum
The Gayageum is a Korean zither based on the Chinese Guzheng. It is one in a family of many regional zithers from across East Asia, including its sisters the Japanese Koto, Mongolian Yatga, and Vietnamese Dan Tranh. The traditional Sanjo Gayageum has 12 strings tuned pentatonically by use of Anjok, freestanding bridges that can be used to achieve a number of different tunings. Traditional play involves mostly monophonic plucking with the right hand and bending notes with the left, imitating the human voice. In the modern day however, Gayageum with up to 25 diatonically tuned strings are common, and players are used to playing harp-like passages with both hands right of the Anjok.
“Painting the Mountain” utilizes the rarer 18-string Gayageum, combining the projection of the Contemporary 25-string Gayageum with the pentatonic tuning system of the Sanjo Gayageum, allowing for warm, resonant glissandi and intricate contrapuntal lines.
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