‘Odyssey’ to explore pipe organs

For those who ever wondered how pipe organs work, the perfect opportunity for an answer will come later this month.

Lotte Concert Hall is set to host “Organ Odyssey,” featuring one of the world’s oldest and most magnificent instruments.

This is part of its flagship concert series started shortly after the hall’s grand opening in 2016, aimed at enhancing the general public’s understanding of the instruments’ mechanisms, sounds and music.

Held regularly about three times a year, the special Christmas edition of the concert will be on Dec. 18 at 11:30 a.m. at Lotte Concert Hall in eastern Seoul. The Rainbow Chorus, made up of children from multicultural families in Korea, will join the concert, presenting representative Christmas carols, including “Feliz Navidad,” “Silent Night,” “Look Out the Window” and “Noel.”

Audiences can enjoy the harmony of the children’s choir and the solemn sounds of the organ.

Signature music pieces for Christmas, such as excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” will also be performed, among other festive music.

In addition, audiences can closely learn how the organ creates sound and what kinds of tones it makes through its unique structure.

Organist Park Joon-ho and concert guide/trumpeter Na Woong-jun will together explain the intricate processes of how the instrument’s keyboard connects to the interior wind system that pressurizes the in the pipes.

Concert guide Na will reveal the inside of the huge instrument to audiences, as he himself enters it with cameras.

Organist Park will also present organ music pieces written for organ pedals, showcasing the dignified and weighty sounds of the pedals that are operated by the performer’s feet.

Lotte Concert Hall is one of Seoul’s very few concert halls equipped with a pipe organ. Its Rieger pipe organ consists of some 5,000 pipes with 68 stops, installed across the three floors of the hall.

The “Organ Odyssey” concert series will also be performed Feb. 25, July 28, and Dec. 22 bext year. Ticket prices for the concert vary from 15,000 won to 20,000 won.