Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra Concert part of the HPHC Nuri Sunday service

When I first came to Korea to begin my work in 2016, True Mother referenced Hyo Jin Moon’s vision for using music and culture as a way to promote the ideals of Heavenly Parent in the establishment of a culture of peace. She also mentioned the importance of East-West harmony and how my being here could help promote unity between these two cultures. In preparing for the Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra concert on May 22, 2022, I recalled True Mother’s remarks about how the arts can promote unity and harmony.

In her keynote address at the Rally of Hope on November 22, 2020, True Mother announced her intention to establish the International Artists Association for Culture and Peace, (IAACP). She also shared her view that the artistic expressions of Europe and its classical tradition were part of the Christian culture and that this tradition could be a model for art in the Hyo Jeong cultural experience. She alluded to how the European artistic culture was a glorious expression based on the expectation of the return of Christ and the dawning of Heavenly Parent’s ideal world, saying:

In the past, as the Christian cultural realm waited for the Messiah to come again, an ancient, beautiful culture was formed with the European continent at its center. It is still loved today by all peoples of the world. That culture is the culture of longing for the Messiah.

What I want to say now is that although due to the Fall, people have been lacking in filial devotion to our Heavenly Parent, who has endured and waited six thousand years for us, I wish to see their beautiful arts — which express the love, joy and praise they return to their Parent — shining forevermore through the revolution of the culture of heart.

The arts are also a swift path by which the world can become one.

The Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra is a Western style musical ensemble and as such, this project can be a way to promote the East-West harmony that True Mother mentioned. It’s very interesting to me to see how the Asian, Middle-Eastern and Latino cultures have embraced the Western symphonic tradition. There are excellent orchestras in Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Viet Nam, Israel, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Brazil, and Egypt has a world-class opera house. I have conducted concerts with various ensembles in Asia, Israel, and South America and it’s always a gratifying experience to work with these talented and enthusiastic non-Western musicians.

When we started the Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra project in 2018 I wasn’t sure if we could be successful. But within a few months of rehearsing, I sensed that we could build something that could have an impact on the children in our program and also on the Gapyeong community. In 2019 we presented several concerts, but when the COVID-19 crisis happened we had to suspend our activities and this was quite depressing. Still, we continued online music lessons and maintained the hope that we could perform again.

Our concert on May 22 as part of the Heavenly Parent Holy Community Nuri Sunday service, was the Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra’s first public concert after a two-and-half-year suspension of activities. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, our faculty was instructing the students three hours per week. But as we shifted to online instruction they were teaching as much as ten-hour per-per week. Their dedication to our young musicians was quite inspiring.

Before the concert, the students assured me that they were not nervous. I suspect that this was because we

had been preparing much of the music that we presented for over two years. The concert featured several of the original compositions that I composed for the orchestra (Moodo March, HJ Drum Jam) as well as four songs that I composed in 2020 for the Children’s Song CD project that True Mother requested as a way to learn the Korean language.

Vocalist Woo Ahan recorded those songs and we invited her to sing them with the Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra on this occasion.

We also performed one of her original songs, Gritare, which she composed while she was in South America in 2019. The song is infused with Latin rhythmic and melodic influences, and the audience gave Miss Woo a standing ovation for her exciting song and heart-felt performances.

I worked with Hyo Jin Moon at the Manhattan Center for several and he was very interested in the cinema. He believed that making movies could be a way to share the message of peace and love. As a tribute to Hyo Jin Moon, I arranged the theme from the popular film, The Pirates of the Caribbean.

The Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra program now has over 100 students and we were instructing flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, guitar, trumpet, and percussion. We hope that through this program we can have a positive influence on the Seorak community and share the ideals of Heavenly Parent’s Holy Community through the art of music. It is our hope to present four concerts annually and build the orchestra into an important cultural institution, similar to the Little Angels.

I’ve been a professional musician for over fifty years, and I’ve always believed in the idea that music can be a unifying agent in the pursuit of a better world. Too often, musicians and artists are seduced by the material world in their desire for fame and fortune. Our ideals teach that artists should be responsible citizens in the communities in which live and work. Confucius, Plato, and St.

Augustine believed that music and art have moral power, so how we use that power becomes a central issue. This is something that our faculty and staff have tried to impart to our students.

I want to express my gratitude to True Mother, Dr. Yoon Young Ho, and our leadership, as well as our teachers and staff for their support and perseverance through a very challenging time. I would also like to thank the students and parents for their continued belief in the Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra program. Since the orchestra’s inception, our teachers have included Min Jin Cho and Angelika Birdsong (violin), Yuh Jin Choi (viola), Hye Kyung Lee (cello), Junko Suzuki (clarinet), Kumiko Kitaota and Michiko Watabe (flute), (Shuji Hata and Hirouki Yokota (guitar), Yun Gun Kwak (percussion), and Ji Yeol Han (trumpet).

I’d especially like to thank our staff Yeunhee Chang and Eriko Kubo for their dedication and support during these trying times.

True Mother is always reminding us that gratitude is the key to dealing with challenging circumstances, and in the spirit of gratitude, we continued to prepare and eventually presented our performance. The children, our staff, and faculty worked very hard and the results are proof of everyone’s determination and dedication to the Hyo Jeong Youth Orchestra program.