CANYON, Texas — An acclaimed conductor and rising star pianist, both from South Korea, will team with the West Texas A&M University Symphony Orchestra for its next concert.

Dongin Youn

Jiyeon Kang

Dongin Youn, the music director and principal conductor of the CitiPhilharmoni Orchestra in Seoul, will lead the orchestra for their performance of his newly composed “Arirang Overture.”

This is Youn’s second time to lead the WT Symphony following his appearances as guest conductor for the “Music of the Christmas Season” concerts in 2017.

Also joining the orchestra: Jiyeon Kang, a winner of the CitiPhilharmoni concerto competition, for a performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. March 4 in Mary Moody Northen Recital Hall on WT’s Canyon campus. Admission is free.

“We had hoped they would come to us in 2020, but the pandemic delayed their travels to us—a dream deferred, but not denied,” said Dr. Mark Bartley, director of orchestral activities and the Lilith Brainard Professor of Music in the School of Music in the Sybil B. Harrington College of Fine Arts and Humanities .

Also on the concert program is Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, conducted by Bartley.

Youn’s “Arirang Overture,” based on a Korean folk melody, was written for both WT and CitiPhilharmoni to premiere in their respective venues, Bartley said.

Youn studied music theory and composition at Chung-Ang University in Seoul and orchestral composition at the Khabarovsk State Institute of Arts and Culture in Russia. He earned degrees in Romania and the United States.

Kang is a graduate student at Hongik University and winner of several competitions in Korea.

A roster of orchestra members appears below.

Fostering an appreciation of the arts is a key component of the University’s long-range plan, WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World .

That plan is fueled by the historic, $125 million One West comprehensive fundraising campaign. To date, the five-year campaign — which publicly launched in September 2021 — has raised more than $120 million.