We were lucky to catch up with Tae-Young Yu recently and have shared our conversation below.
Tae-Young, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
One of the more meaningful projects was the first film I worked on as a composer. The story goes back to 2018. I was a literature student who had always deeply loved music, and one day I watched director Koo-Yong Sohn’s film A Walk (2018), in which a shot of a pink-painted wall inspired a short piece of music in my mind. I recorded the song on the piano as soon as I got back home and decided to send it to the director. Surprisingly, he invited me to work with him on his next project, Winter in Seoul (2019). That film received positive reviews and was selected for the internationally renowned Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan, which brought me to the world of film music and became a turning point in my life.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I studied literary analysis and cultural criticism, obtaining a master’s degree in English literature from Ewha Womans [sic] University as well as a master’s in early modern studies at University College London. During that time, the most significant area of focus was literary criticism that consists of close reading and storytelling. I believe that the essence of screen scoring lies in close reading and storytelling, which translates the narrative on the screen into music. My strong narrative sensibility is a great asset that sets me apart from others.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I often put Korean traditional instruments, scales, or rhythms into my pieces of music, which stems from my identity as a Korean. Our traditional music is attractive as it is, but it becomes an infinite source of new sounds and feelings when blended with Western music. As a Korean composer based abroad, one of my goals is to modernize Korean traditional music and introduce its beautiful elements to the world.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is a very meaningful literary work to me, as I wrote my thesis on it as a literature major in graduate school. Although the novel is well known as an adventure story of a castaway washed up on a deserted island, one of the book’s pivotal themes is recordkeeping, which is closely related to the management/entrepreneurial perspective. In the novel, after being left alone on the island, Robinson Crusoe brings a pen and paper from the wrecked ship and starts to keep a daily journal. The biggest part of Crusoe’s record comprises bookkeeping and timekeeping. Bookkeeping allows Crusoe to take active possession of unoccupied land and make it his private property, while timekeeping regularizes his working life, which enhances his productivity. Crusoe’s recordkeeping is accomplished in a very primitive way, yet the novel implies that the act of recordkeeping is the key to his material improvement. Thus, although it is not a practical self-development book on business, Robinson Crusoe had a great impact on my management/entrepreneurial philosophy in that it opened up the space to think about the essence of a human being’s material progress.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.taeyoungyu.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taeyoungyu.music/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@taeyoungyu
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3KV8TGjxW1qx6xm2Et9nU8