TIMF앙상블

Ensemble TIMF

Founded in 2001 with the mission of serving as an ambassador for the Tongyeong International Music Festival and establishing a leading professional ensemble representing Korea, the TIMF Ensemble is comprised of outstanding musicians who are actively performing both in Korea and abroad. After making its debut at the “2002 Tongyeong International Music Festival D-100 Concert,” the ensemble has steadily expanded its artistic scope, solidifying its position as a professional performing group. Each year, through diverse programs and high-quality performances, TIMF Ensemble continues to offer audiences a rich musical experience spanning classical repertoire as well as contemporary music. The ensemble has collaborated with some of the most distinguished composers of our time, including Unsuk Chin, Tan Dun, Heiner Goebbels, Heinz Holliger, Toshio Hosokawa, and Steve Reich. In addition, the ensemble has appeared with many of Korea’s leading musicians such as Nam-Yun Kim, HaeSun Paik, Kwangchul Youn, Sunhae Im, Dong-Hyek Lim, Yeree Suh, and Jonghwa Park, as well as internationally renowned artists including Martha Argerich, Sergei Nakariakov, Gautier Capuçon, Kazuhito Yamashita, Günter Pichler, Giuliano Carmignola, and Leonidas Kavakos, among many others.

Since 2005, the ensemble has also taken a leading role in nurturing the next generation of musicians through the “TIMF Ensemble Academy,” inviting distinguished artists from Korea and abroad to present masterclasses, workshops, and concerts. In recognition of these efforts, TIMF Ensemble was selected in 2007 as a “Performing Arts Focused Support Organization” by the Arts Council Korea, receiving three years of support and firmly establishing itself as an internationally recognized performing ensemble.

Beyond the Korean stage, TIMF Ensemble has been widely recognized for its activities abroad. Beginning with its appearance at the Bacău Contemporary Music Festival in Romania in 2003, the ensemble has expanded its international presence through invitations to major festivals such as the Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music, the Warsaw Autumn, the Venice Biennale, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, the Isang Yun 90th Anniversary Japan Tour, and the Hong Kong Musicarama Festival. In 2011, the ensemble collaborated with the Hong Kong Arts Festival to co-produce a music theatre work that received its world premiere in Hong Kong, and subsequently completed successful tours in Geneva, Athens, and the Vatican, as well as invitation performances in Singapore and Austria. In 2013, TIMF Ensemble presented a successful collaboration with the French electronic music organization GRAME, and in 2014 performed with IRCAM, the renowned music and acoustics research institute under the Centre Pompidou. In March 2015, the ensemble was invited by the Basel Symphony Orchestra to help introduce Asian contemporary music to European audiences, and later that year gave successful invitation performances in Paris and Bratislava. In 2017, TIMF Ensemble performed in Samara, Russia, presenting Korean contemporary music and culture to new audiences. As the core members of the Tongyeong Festival Orchestra, the ensemble also participated in Asian tours to Hong Kong and Kanazawa in 2015 and spring 2018, and in 2017 joined the Isang Yun 100th Anniversary European Tour, performing in Bochum, Hamburg, Hannover, Linz, Brno, and Bratislava.

In recent years, TIMF Ensemble has further expanded its artistic scope through innovative cross-genre projects centered on contemporary music, including productions such as Ballet Mécanique, Mauricio Kagel’s Rrrrrrr…, and The Blue Bird of Happiness. The ensemble was also invited by the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group this past June, where it presented a successful performance. Through its commitment to developing a broad repertoire that bridges classical and contemporary music, along with imaginative programming, TIMF Ensemble continues to explore new possibilities while leading the future of Korean music.