Conductor Park Geun-tae on breaking through Europe's barriers: 'I just keep challenging myself'

Sound waves ripple across the hardwood floor as an orchestra of about 20 musicians and a grand piano fill the room. In a hall long revered as a sanctuary of chamber music, the orchestra takes center stage. The multipurpose hall at the artists' residence — capacity 100 — is split roughly 60-40, orchestra facing audience in near-total proximity.

At such close range, every trembling finger, brushing sleeve and fleeting expression is visible as French music blooms. Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2 — its dense, tightly woven orchestral texture set against the crystalline clarity of pianist Lee Gwan-wook — and Ravel's "Le Tombeau de Couperin," sculpted with precision and restraint rather than melodrama, reach the audience almost tangibly. It is the finale of The House Concert's July Festival, brought to life by conductor Park Geun-tae and a cast of musicians bound by shared history: classmates from Yewon School, class of 1991; fellow alumni of the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin; and colleagues from the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra.

"It feels like coming home," Park said.

Twelve years ago, in 2014, Park performed at The House Concert as a pianist. Now he returned to the same stage as a conductor — and assembled the orchestra himself. "Among musicians, The House Concert is known as a gathering place," he said, laughing. "This performance was both my debut as a conductor here and a Yewon School reunion."

His closest friends rallied to form what amounted to a dream team — the only conductor among their graduating class surrounded by his inner circle. Concertmaster Ha Yu-na joined forces with principal flutist Kim Min-ji of the Suwon Philharmonic, principal clarinetist Kim Ji-a of the Daejeon Philharmonic and principal bassoonist Lee Gyeong-jin of the Korea National Symphony Orchestra. It was a stage layered with both the personal and the professional sides of Park Geun-tae.

Park was appointed resident conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra this year, making him a Daejeon local. He sat down with The Korea Herald recently in Seoul. "Taking on the Daejeon Philharmonic made me want to build a more regular routine, so I've been living in Daejeon," he said. "I found a place right next to Kyobo Book Centre and I'm happily settled into a rhythm of going back and forth between the gym and the orchestra."

"A conductor who commands the drama and realizes the essence of the work."

That is how maestro Riccardo Muti described Park Geun-tae. Coming from a figure who has rewritten the history of opera, those words meant more to Park than any competition prize.

"It was the most precise expression of the ideal I pursue as a conductor," Park recalled. He was conducting Mozart's opera Don Giovanni at the Fondazione Prada hall in Milan — the first Korean ever selected in the 11-year history of the Muti Academy. For his rendering of the opera's dramatic sweep between heaven and hell through the full, rich sound of a modern orchestra, the maestro offered unstinting praise.

Park was, in fact, a pianist first. He followed the elite track through Yewon School and Seoul Arts High School, sweeping major domestic competitions along the way. The turning point came in 2015, when he was traveling through Berlin and Vienna after a guest recital in Budapest, Hungary. Armed with student discounts, he chased down performances by leading German orchestras and opera houses.

"German universities allow outsiders to sit in on classes. When I audited an orchestra class at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin and then heard the Berlin Philharmonic live, I realized I had been a frog in a well."

He was in the final semester of his master's program at Yonsei University when, that very day, he decided to study abroad in Germany — still with the piano in mind. Living as roommates with his sunbae Lee Seung-won, now associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the United States, proved enormously influential. "I had vaguely dreamed of conducting after watching maestro Chung Myung-whun, but I had no idea how to go about it," Park said. "Accompanying my older colleague's conducting classes and watching him study made me think, 'I want to learn this too.'"

In his very first semester at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin, conducting found him like fate. It happened when he led the Frankfurt Oder Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.

"When the enormous sound of a professional orchestra flowed out like magic in response to the gestures of my fingertips, I felt a shiver run through me. I think I sensed instinctively that conducting was the profession and the path I was meant to walk for the rest of my life."

His years as a pianist — guiding sprawling works of more than 50 minutes alone at the keyboard, shaping organic narrative and sustaining tension — proved a decisive weapon on the podium. He had learned, in both mind and body over many years, that "you have to hold the arc of a piece and keep it from ever feeling dull."

A conductor, however, occupies a singular place in the musical world — the only musician who produces sound without touching an instrument, shaping the spirit and essence of the music itself.

"A conductor is not a one-dimensional technician simply beating time," Park said. "You are not someone who reads a score — you have to dig into and unlock the composer's real story and the context hidden behind the notes."

His encounter with maestro Muti was both an inflection point and a moment of deep conviction in Park's conducting life. Three meetings over two years. "Even in his mid-80s, the energy of a man who rehearses for four or five hours straight, singing the whole time without a break — that stays vivid with me to this day," he said. Muti taught not technique first, but questions.

"Maestro Muti always emphasized: 'It doesn't matter when or what we play. We must know why we play.'"

Only by understanding why you produce a particular sound, and why you are performing a given work at this moment, can you make music that truly persuades. For Park, the score is therefore always the starting point. Since committing to the conductor's path, he has often compared himself to an archaeologist. "I go looking for the stories not written in the score, the way you excavate a site where nothing is labeled," he said. It is why he reaches for a composer's letters over critical commentary, and for primary sources over program notes — he believes that tracing what the composer left behind, rather than inheriting someone else's interpretation, is the way to stand closest to the essence of a work.

This is also what makes his Mozart distinctive. Where most modern orchestras performing Don Giovanni have tried to approximate the lighter acoustic of period instruments, Park took a different view. "There is death in this work, hellfire, and screaming — so deliberately flattening the rich resonance of modern instruments into something thin and plain is nonsense," he said. He believes that making the dramatic tension of the work as alive as possible through today's instruments is precisely what Mozart wanted. It is why Muti praised his interpretation as one that "realizes the essence of the work."

He fell in love with conducting as if by destiny, but the path itself offered no end of mountains to climb. Surviving as a young conductor in Europe was never going to be easy.

"Europe is genuinely harsh toward Asian male conductors," Park said, carefully but matter-of-factly.

The conservative heart of classical music has made steady efforts in recent years to dismantle its traditions. The arrival of Gustavo Dudamel cracked open the door to conductors from outside the white male mainstream, and from the 2020s onward the field began more actively seeking women conductors who could shatter the glass ceiling. Competitions and masterclasses increasingly tried to balance gender representation. With male conductors still vastly outnumbering women, competition grew fiercer — and adding the condition of being Asian narrowed the door further still.

Park challenged himself on a new international stage nearly every year, entering competitions and masterclasses without ever giving up. The record he built: first prize at the 2022 De Beaujeu Opera Conducting Competition in France; the Erich Bergel Prize and Orchestra Prize at the 2024 Erich Bergel International Conducting Competition in Romania; and third place along with the Penderecki Special Prize at the 2025 Khachaturian International Competition.

His first encounter with the Korea National Symphony Orchestra (KNSO) is a pivotal chapter in his story. At the 2023 KNSO Conductor Workshop, former artistic director David Reiland praised him as "a seasoned conductor who combines intellect and emotion," and Park was named the top conductor. That recognition opened doors: a debut at Seoul Arts Center's 11 O'Clock Concert, and opportunities to conduct the KBS Symphony Orchestra and the KNSO on their regular subscription programs.

"The KNSO is like a badge of honor for me — the organization that discovered conductor Park Geun-tae and kept giving me stage opportunities, a fence I'm grateful for," he said. He then claimed first place again at a conducting masterclass with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under artistic director Jaap van Zweden, further validating his artistic vision and practical directing ability as a next-generation conductor.

Even so, the doors in the real world remained narrow. "There was no other way than to keep challenging myself to get more opportunities," Park said.

The painstaking accumulation of time and effort was not in vain. He became resident conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra and earned a reputation as a conductor orchestras invite back. In May he reunited with the Târgu Mureș Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in Romania, and in October he takes the stage at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts with the KNSO. Being recognized — having passed the scrutiny of musicians and artistic directors in both Europe and Korea — gives him real strength. "Building a relationship with the players is just as important as the conducting itself, so the trust of an orchestra is the greatest badge of honor I have."

These days Park is pursuing a range of musical experiments with the Daejeon Philharmonic. Rather than programming crowd-pleasing hits one after another, he dreams of projects that explore a single composer in depth. "I'm working on building the orchestra's sound by going deep into Haydn and threading Beethoven across multiple works," he said.

Daejeon Philharmonic artistic director and principal conductor Yeo Ja-kyeong is firmly in his corner. "Offering a buffet of varied pieces has its own meaning, but an orchestra grows through the process of digging deep," she said.

What Park wants is not a single dazzling performance. His goal is to take the time to shape the orchestra's identity, reinterpret perspective and space, and keep experimenting — giving audiences a direct experience of the aesthetic core that classical music holds.

"Ten years from now, I want to be a conductor who never hesitates to try something new. Over those ten years, I want to build solid trust and support from the players, the audience and the music world. On that foundation, I want to break free from old habits and pursue bold, original musical challenges together with the orchestra — that is the picture I have of myself a decade from now."