'Like driving a compact car, then suddenly a Porsche': inside Korea's most coveted conducting workshop

The breath of more than 50 musicians hangs on the tip of a raised baton. A single preparatory beat slices through the silence, and a wave of sound floods the rehearsal room. The eyes of the young conductors fixed on their scores grow sharp and intent. From beside the podium, a master's gaze tracks the orchestra's texture and the conductor's every breath with relentless focus.

"Imagine the footsteps of pallbearers carrying a coffin in a funeral procession."

Oh Seong-bin, currently serving as second Kapellmeister at the Osnabrück Theater in Germany, cannot forget those words from Music Director Roberto Abbado during a run-through of the second movement of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony. Rather than instructing players on how to execute a passage technically, Abbado invites conductors to conjure an image that captures the character of the music. A single well-aimed phrase from the maestro shifts the atmosphere on the podium in an instant.

Twenty-four-year-old Jeong Seon-woo, the youngest participant in the workshop's history, came to conducting from composition. He applied the moment he became eligible — enrollment in a master's program — and despite having no professional debut, he radiated a seasoned presence. Each sweep of his supple wrist drew out music that was at once raw and intense yet finely calibrated. Kwon Su-jeong wove her desired sound by holding the gaze of each musician across the music stand; Oh Seong-bin answered every subtle shift in the melody with a face full of expression; Choi Jae-hyuk commanded the ensemble with creative, unrestrained gestures and a veteran's ease. Four entirely distinct musical personalities unfolded on the podium.

Held recently at the national arts organization rehearsal space inside Seoul Arts Center, the 2026 KNSO Conductor Workshop brought together four next-generation conductors — selected from a field that produced a 9.25-to-1 acceptance ratio — and the KNSO Academy Orchestra, made up of young musicians in their twenties. The room felt like an arena where each participant's musical ideals collided with an unforgiving reality.

This year's workshop marked the first time Roberto Abbado, who took up the baton as the orchestra's eighth music director, worked alongside emerging Korean conductors. His approach departed sharply from the standard masterclass formula.

The participants were unanimous in their assessment of Abbado: rather than pointing out technical flaws, he draws the broad arc of a work and insists on thorough preparation that reaches into the humanistic context behind the music.

During the workshop, participants immersed themselves in Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 and Brahms' Symphony No. 1. Recalling his time with the Brahms, Choi said Abbado "speaks gently and indirectly, but the words land with precision." When Abbado asked after a run-through whether the conductors had read the composer's letters or contemporary essays, Choi noted, "that question was also a way of saying, 'you haven't prepared enough.'" Abbado also consistently pushed back against bar-by-bar beat-counting, urging conductors instead to "phrase across two measures and weave a longer line" — offering the essential language of music rather than its mechanics.

Abbado's approach left a deep impression on the young conductors. Oh reflected that instead of technical corrections, Abbado "awakened a macro-level sense of conducting the music itself." Choi, the only participant to have attended both of Korea's major orchestra conducting workshops — those of the Seoul Philharmonic and the KNSO — drew a sharp contrast: "Jaap van Zweden at the Seoul Phil masterclass was extraordinarily detail-oriented, tracking everything from your eyes to your wrist. Abbado holds back and lets you find your own breath — he paints the big picture."

Kim Noltemy, president of the LA Philharmonic, who joined the workshop, called Abbado "a wonderful teacher." He said the key to growth lies in "letting the four conductors try things themselves, watching closely, then offering a small suggestion to see whether they learn through mistakes or through different attempts." Rather than dictating every move and repeating "that's wrong, do it again," he added, Abbado "helps them internalize the music through two or three well-chosen suggestions."

Wrapping up his first workshop with the orchestra, Abbado said it was "a great joy and an honor" to work with the four conductors. "I saw four wonderful, distinct personalities," he said, adding that he wanted to respect each conductor's individual vision and refrained from interfering with their work. Throughout the three days, he regarded the four not as students attending a workshop but as colleagues.

"I don't think of the four of you as students. I am simply a colleague with a little more experience. Becoming an artist is hard. You will have wonderful moments, but there will also be times when criticism and resistance shake you and leave you feeling low. Build your inner strength and never give up."

Being selected for the KNSO Conductor Workshop — an intensive program with only a handful of spots — is no small feat. The four participants arrived with formidable credentials.

Choi took first place as the youngest winner at the 2017 Geneva International Competition in composition and is nearing the end of his Professional Diploma in Performance and Leadership program at Mannes School of Music; Kwon is enrolled in the orchestral conducting diploma program at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts; Jeong is pursuing a master's degree at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin; and Oh is an active Kapellmeister in Germany. All four are considered among the most promising talents in Korean classical music.

Impressive as their résumés are, the reality they face is unforgiving. A chronic shortage of podium time shadows every emerging conductor. The structural bottleneck — far too few opportunities to stand before an established orchestra — makes masterclasses and workshops not merely educational events but urgent stages on which young conductors must prove their worth.

Choi said he pursues competitions and masterclasses "because there simply are no stage opportunities." In a world where staying still means remaining invisible, he called the masterclass "the only channel through which you can make yourself known, and the most humble one at that."

Kim echoed that view. He stressed that hosting workshops like this in Seoul "is not only good for raising the level of conductors, but also for building awareness that outstanding Korean conductors exist — that it is not something special or exceptional." He added: "There may be hundreds of brilliant conductors out there, but we don't know yet. Especially in the United States, we have no chance to see them in person, so events like this become a special opportunity."

The difficulty runs deeper than a lack of visibility. Young conductors who dream of the podium often cannot conduct at all. Unless they are affiliated with an ensemble, the chance to stand before a full orchestra is vanishingly rare — unless they pay out of pocket for rehearsal time. Kwon, who also applied last year, was the first participant to attend the workshop for a second consecutive year.

She recalled that Abbado once described his first time conducting at the Vienna State Opera in his twenties as feeling like he had "been driving a compact car and suddenly got into a Porsche" — and said the experience resonated with her completely. "Standing before a professional-level orchestra is an entirely different dimension from a school practice room," she said. "It became a turning point that made me ask myself: what musical ideas can I add to musicians who are already fully formed? That is an enormously important experience for a student conductor." Jeong said he came to conducting after becoming captivated by the density of orchestral sound while working as a composer, but that chances to stand before a real orchestra are "extremely rare." He called even a single hour of fully conducting an orchestra "an immense opportunity."

Four different interpretations of the same score served as a vivid mirror for each participant. They watched one another's rehearsals as objective observers and peers — nodding at familiar choices, and pressing themselves to find the reason behind every unfamiliar sound. It was a living musical solidarity that transcended closed competition.

Jeong reflected that even when conductors set the same tempo, "the textural quality each one drew from the orchestra was completely different — watching that objectively, seeing how the orchestra responded in each case, was itself a profound lesson." Choi added that he was so taken with an interpretive idea Oh tried during the Beethoven that he asked Oh's permission to borrow it and immediately tested it on the podium himself. Kwon said she found in Jeong "a conductor's conviction," in Oh "a standard for beautiful sound and rehearsal efficiency," and in Choi "ease and creativity on the podium."

The KNSO Academy Orchestra was an equally indispensable force behind the workshop's success. Made up of young musicians with an average age in their mid-twenties, the ensemble absorbed the four conductors' divergent musical demands like a sponge, free of the habitual mannerisms that can settle into established orchestras.

Oh marveled that even without lowering his expectations for the academy musicians, "their response time was astonishingly fast — I didn't need to explain things at length; a single conducting gesture was enough to change the sound immediately." Choi called them "top-condition professionals with bright, alert eyes" who created "a safe ground where I could freely explore the ideas in my head without the psychological pressure of standing before an established orchestra." Kwon said the musicians' "unwavering concentration as they responded to four conductors demanding four different interpretations gave me a real sense of breathing together."

Mentor Abbado was moved throughout. "Even as the four conductors took completely different approaches, the musicians followed them with remarkable flexibility and focus. I was genuinely in awe," he said. "I learned a great deal myself from being with these young musicians. Watching them, I kept wanting to step up onto the podium and conduct alongside them."

"Conducting an orchestra you don't know is difficult. A few days is not enough time to truly understand an ensemble. Despite that disadvantage, all four of them did remarkably well. They are completely on par with their peers in the United States and Europe."

Kim, who observed the three-day program in full, said he had nothing but praise for the participants: "All four are highly talented and have great potential." With the workshop behind them, the four conductors now turn toward the international stages that await them.

Choi was named the outstanding conductor of the workshop and awarded a 2.5 million won ($1,810) scholarship from the Sea & Air Unkyung Cultural Foundation. He said "the experience of completing all movements of the Brahms Symphony with an orchestra from start to finish is itself a great asset." Taking Abbado's encouragement that he had grown as motivation, Choi said he would "always approach the podium as a humble student, even at forty or fifty." The leader of contemporary music ensemble Blank, he is set to take the podium of Spain's national broadcaster RTVE Symphony Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica RTVE) early next year.

Kwon's upcoming schedule is equally anticipated. She has a performance of Haydn symphonies at Liszt Hall in Budapest scheduled, and in January will make her European debut with the Sofia Philharmonic in Bulgaria, performing works by Sibelius. "I want to become a conductor who uncovers ideas beyond the score and brings them to life in the vivid sound of an orchestra," she said. Jeong, the youngest of the four, named Mariss Jansons' wild textural energy and Claudio Abbado's flowing lyricism as his musical role models, and expressed his ambition "to become a conductor who may not move everyone, but can create a profound resonance in even a single person."