A Bassoonist's Stage Diary — The Rite of Spring Begins
Notes Beyond the Score A Bassoonist's Stage Diary · Performance Essay · 2026 Korea Symphony Festival One Note Through the Silence — The Rite of Spring Begins Bassoon · After performing Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring Junwon Lee · Principal Bassoon · Incheon Philharmonic Orchestra · Incheon Art Center · Seoul Arts Center · 2026 Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring demands absolute vigilance from the first bar to the last. Yet among all its countless moments of tension, none is more exposed — more precarious — than the very beginning. In the stillness of a darkened hall, while an entire orchestra holds its breath, the first sound that must emerge into that silence is a bassoon solo. The Lowest Voice, Asked to Reach the Highest The bassoon is the foundational bass voice of the woodwind family. Its deep, resonant timbre is both its identity and, for those of us who have devoted our lives to it, the sound we know most intimately. And yet Stravinsky, in choosing the bassoon to op...