Chapter 13
Rehearsal of fear
With dozens of CDs in her arms, a female employee came out of Kwon’s room crying.
Her colleagues just hold their breath because they did not know when they would be called in again. They did not do anything.
Kwon Seok-dong, the president of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, who had been in office for only six months, was a professional manager from the financial sector who often abused his employees under the pretext of punishing them when the profits were not good enough.
His principles were obvious. If the company lost money, then the men would not get their salaries, and they could sell their organs if they wanted money. Women had nice legs, so they should wear miniskirts and go sell some CDs to the chairmen.
The cause of his anger was that the orchestra’s finances were in the red.
President Kwon called Sang-yeon, who was preparing for a rehearsal.
If he had something to say, he would tell people to come. Sang-yeon became very uncomfortable after being called because he wondered what Kwon would say.
In the hallway leading to Kwon’s office, Sang-yeon ran into a female employee who was leaving with CDs. At that moment, the paper bag containing the CDs could not withstand the weight and tore open.
Sang-yeon felt even more upset when he saw an album with his own face on the cover lying in the hallway.
“Did you call me?”
“Oh, it’s not a big deal… You’ll have to report to the city council soon, so I was wondering how the preparations were going.”
He was only a little older than Sang-yeon, but was talking informally to him. It was rather impolite, but Sang-yean ignored it and only said what he had to say.
“Is there anything else I should prepare? Please tell me sincerely.”
“Well… If the government changes soon, we’ll have to line up well.”
“If the owner of the Blue House[1] changes, the heads of agencies won’t be forced to resign. It’s not like you would be asked to resign to hide what you did…”
“Oh, it’s like conductor Park, everyone in the world knows. By the way, about the budget… I’m also a professional manager, so I’m looking forward to it.”
The main point was money again.
“Tell me what it is. I have practice soon.”
“A performance for the citizens, what’s this? A concert for the town? Do you have to keep doing this? A free performance for the poor working class… This is actually not polite to our members. Isn’t it just for the local newspapers articles anyway? Right? And…”
“What else?”
When Sang-yeon cut off his words, President Kwon coughed with a deeply displeased face.
“I’ve been through the sales history of the past, and what is that modern music series? This is a money-eating ghost again?! It’s not even with musical instruments, people pound on pot-like things, crumple papers or something, and cost money to make noise like this…”
He could no longer tolerate this. It was disgraceful for Sang-yeon to sit face to face with a shallow moneyworm who had no respect or understanding of art.
“I’ll resign.”
“…?”
“If our orchestra’s performance is poor this year, I will take responsibility and resign.”
“Oh! That would be a way. The mayor overpaid you in the first place to bring you from Europe. The biggest cause of our fiscal deficit is conductor Park.”
Kwon did not hide his satisfaction. Sang-yeon stood up from his seat.
“Instead, if there’s a profit, the President-nim will resign. It will be the same result in the end, as we don’t like to see each other.”
As expected, should people listen to what others say to the end? Despite Sang-yeon’s declaration of war, however, his opponent was not shaken at all.
“But, whether you hate me or not, we’re still in the same boat, so don’t miss the dinner appointment tonight.”
Sang-yeon’s head ached thinking that it would be a very long and tiring day.
At 9:45 a.m., near Gwanghwamun Station.
People wearing musical instruments began to walk faster. When one person stepped up from walking to running, everyone started running too as if they had promised to do so.
All of them were members of the Philharmonic Orchestra and had a rehearsal at 10. On the day of practice, the members could not relax.
Was it said that music was the art of time? Perhaps that was why Sang-yeon was particularly sensitive to time commitments.
If one member was late for even one minute, the rehearsal of the day was canceled on the spot. No one dared to be late for practice again, as more than 100 people came in vain a couple of times due to the tardiness of a single person.
And there was another case where the rehearsal was canceled because a phone rang during practice.
Terribly sensitive, Sang-yeon’s ears found noise like a ghost even when dozens of instruments were playing at once, and the person who was caught was dismissed.
As noise continued due to frequent replacement of members, the secretariat even implemented a special measure to keep the mobile phones of members during practice as a desperate measure.
Today, as usual, secretariat employees received the cell phones of the members who were standing in front of the door of the practice room with baskets and checked attendance.
Sitting in their designated seats, the members tuned their respective instruments and, a moment later, Sang-yeon entered exactly when the clock hand pointed at 10 o’clock. Members all rose from their seats.
In fact, not all orchestra members stood up every time the conductor entered.
This was a measure showing of how much the orchestra respected and honored the conductor standing in front of them.
“Good morning!”
When Sang-yeon greeted them, the members sat down again and the secretariat staff left in unison.
The doors of the practice room were closed and the rehearsal began.
Sang-yeon closed his eyes for a moment, putting his hand reverently on the sheet music on the table.
All the members followed Sang-yeon and put their hands on the sheet music a little later, and when Sang-yeon opened his eyes, they all opened the sheet music together.
This short ceremony had already turned Sang-yeon into a completely different person, as if it had summoned the soul of a composer from another world.
He fell in love with music like a possessed man and did not know how to stop once he took the baton. It was truly madness.
There was no such thing as lunch time. The clock had already passed 2 p.m. and the members were starting to get tired one by one. Only Park Sang-yeon was fine.
“Only do Letter D First Violin.”
Less than 10 seconds after the member started playing the violin,
“Again!”
Less than five seconds after he started playing the violin,
“Again!”
Less than three seconds after he started playing the violin,
“Again!”
The violin performance started again, but Sang-yeon soon stopped playing.
“Ignore the sheet music and look at how my baton moves. Is it that hard?”
Sang-yeon barely controlled his anger and lifted the baton again.
“Let’s do it all together again from the beginning.”
The music started from the beginning. At that moment, everyone was watching Sang-yeon’s baton and playing like walking on thin ice. Sang-yeon’s baton stopped again.
The members stopped playing without knowing what was going on, and only then did they hear the cell phone ringtone hidden by the sound of the instruments. Everyone looked at one place. It was the seat of the oboist Lee Geun-hwa.
“Oboist Lee Geun-hwa-ssi, please leave.”
“Conductor-nim, this is unfair. I’m sure I was…”
“xx, can’t you hear me right now? Take that cell phone and get out of my practice room right now!”
Sang-yeon, who reached the peak of his anger, broke the baton he was holding.
Lee Geun-hwa did not want to admit it, but she left the practice room with her phone ringing in her bag.
“To you, this may be just a job for which you’re paid if you come and wait for a few hours, but not to me. I’m standing here risking my life and everything I have. On the day that the performance is ruined, I’m hanging around in shame for days and nights, but what about you? As if nothing had happened, you would eat with your beloved wife, husband and lover and roll in bed. You’re playing rubbish like this, but you’re definitely writing in the job section that you’re a musician, a professor somewhere… Right? I won’t wait and see you ruin my music or my name. Never!”
The practice room was filled with fear and seemed to be about to explode at any moment.
Ah! A viola player who could not stand the accumulated fatigue, hunger and fear for such a long time ran out of the practice room with nausea.
“That’s it for today.”
Sang-yeon came back to his senses.
It was not just the members who were exhausted after practice.
Tiredness and pain that Sang-yeon did not feel when holding the baton on the podium came at once and tormented him.
He just wanted to go back home and rest, but there was an important dinner meeting that Kwon had spoken of in the morning.
Seoul Mayor Yoo Kyung-deok, chairman of the nation’s third-largest business group, and President Kwon of the Philharmonic Orchestra were toasting with their glasses at the private restaurant where only VVIPs could enter.
There was no orchestra in the world that was not in deficit. So sponsorship was essential for arts. The reality was that it was difficult to operate without the sponsorship and investment of companies.
In addition, the group of the Philharmonic Orchestra was more involved in politics than others. Not only was it operated on the people’s taxes, but the mayor appointed the art director and the president position himself.
In other words, the group handled taxes as corporate management, which could create problems.
In order for this symbiosis to work out, they had to overlook each other properly and push and pull together while doing dirty things, but Park Sang-yeon could not do it. No, he hated it so much.
From his perspective, as the chief conductor and art director of the Philharmonic Orchestra, it was simply a dream to have a dedicated concert hall for his orchestra.
But there was some sort of unclear deal here.
It would cost 250 billion won to build a concert hall like the Sydney Opera House near the Han River in Seoul.
It was an open bid, and the Hyun-kyung Group, which had succeeded in winning the construction order, was supposed to take on the troublesome orchestra that ate the budget of the Seoul Metropolitan Government every year in return.
It was a highly welcomed scenario for the city council. With that money, the public works could be carried out, and the mayor and the president of the Philharmonic Orchestra would of course receive back money from the construction company, and if Sang-yeon cooperated actively in it, he would win long-term power.
Four men gathered and had dinner for this seemingly win-win secret agreement. Then, as if they had planned it from the beginning, they moved to the hotel’s suite.
Sang-yeon followed the others by drinking alcohol, which he usually did not do, but it became harder to endure as time went by.
A young woman entered the room at Chairman Min’s call around midnight after they had drunk quite a lot. The woman passed all the seats and sat next to Sang-yeon.
“Haha, she doesn’t even look at old people.”
Chairman Min laughed jokingly.
A woman wearing a skirt that was short enough to show her underwear crossed her legs and pulled out a liquid e-cigarette from her bag. With one hand on Sang-yeon’s thigh and her chest close to him, the woman took a deep sip of her cigarette and offered it to Sang-yeon.
Everyone there looked at the hesitant Sang-yeon with a frustrated look. It was silent pressure.
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The woman seduced Sang-yeon with a more explicit gesture, but Sang-yeon slapped her hand.
At that moment, Kwon’s lips twitched.
As if watching an interesting game, everyone waited for Sang-yeon’s next move.
TL notes
[1] The Blue House is the residence of the President of South Korea.