For San Diego-based composer Texu Kim, home feels like belonging and comfort. A warmth. And leaving home can mean the opposite — but also something new, something exciting.
The San Diego State University professor of music knows a thing or two about home — and about leaving. Raised in Seoul, South Korea, after he moved to the United States he then moved around repeatedly — four different states within 13 years before landing in San Diego.
And what he's interested in exploring in a new commission for the inauguration of the San Diego Symphony's Jacobs Music Hall is that intersection of belonging and new — the idea of a homecoming. It's a fanfare, called (aptly) "Welcome Home!!"
Kim said that the emotion we feel when we leave home is translated into the feeling when we return home after a long time — a thrill, but wrapped up in familiarity.
"In this case, this piece expresses excitement of having both a new home, and getting into the home after a while," Kim said of the composition.
The San Diego Symphony last performed in their indoor concert hall in March of 2020 — then known as Copley Symphony Hall. Now, after the passage of over four years — and a $125 million renovation — the orchestra and their audiences will return home on Sept. 28, 2024.
A homecoming activates something of a muscle memory, Kim said. Recently, he visited his mother in Seoul, whom he'd lived with during his twenties.
"I spent a bit of time composing for another piece, on the dining table. And my body remembered how it feels and fits there. It's kind of the magic of returning home," Kim said. "Just like that activities and memories are tied to places, and we build and season our memories when we repeat an activity at a specific location, and also these memories connect the past and future."
For San Diego Symphony Music Director Rafael Payare, he was so excited to set foot back inside the hall that he said he screamed when he first walked in.
"You look around and you think what — how we have been waiting for it, and actually being able to have … I had to," Payare said of the scream, laughing. There's that mixture of familiarity and home again.
Kim's music is influenced by his native Korea and Korean culture and folklore as well as the idea of everyday experiences. But he's also influenced by his scientific background. He received his first bachelor's degree in chemistry.
"I have actually forgotten much of what I learned, because it's 20 years ago, but still it has informed my perspectives," Kim said. "I often see composing as combining different genres and re-synthesizing melodies that are broken down into smaller fragments."
He first dabbled in composition by arranging music, which he approached experimentally, working on a broad range of genres like jazz, classical, Korean music — and would often combine those elements. This mindset expanded into his composition, resulting in a cauldron-like, chemical stew of sounds and influences.
Kim prioritizes fun in his music — whimsical topics and motifs coupled with a slightly aggressive use of exclamation points in his titles. This may be a little at odds with the seriousness of his research and thoughtful approach to a piece of music, but in Kim's compositional chemistry, it absolutely works.
For "Welcome Home!!" Kim leaned into this chemistry. The lively, intricate piece features the San Diego Symphony's percussion and brass, and was written with those performers in mind. But mostly, it was informed by notions of home.
"I researched lots of different genres that are associated with the idea of home in many ways. Recently, to write this piece, I listened to much of K-pop again, because it's how, where I feel at home as a culture. I also researched items like sea shanties and Korean labor songs — different from K-pop but a lot of Korean folk culture influenced Korean pop music as well."
In addition to these, he also researched other pop genres and Kumeyaay songs, as well as Venezuelan folk genres like joropo — a nod to San Diego Symphony maestro Rafael Payare's hometown.
When asked for an example of a particular song he called upon, Kim said that it's more of a blurry blend.
"I think that's the beauty of doing chemistry, not like Lego blocks," Kim said.
He said that the maracas in a Venezuelan joropo is surprisingly similar to some Korean folk genres and Kumeyaay songs on a technical level — the meter and rhythms. He also noted a similar call and response commonality in several genres.
"So I think it's fascinating to see everything is in a way connected under the term of creating the feeling of home," Kim said.
Kim said grew up in a family of non-musicians, but he's quick to correct himself: "My mom was not a trained musician," he clarified. "My mom sang in a church choir, but I don't think she really reads music. She followed the shape very well, but she was not trained as a musician. So it was always the question to me how I can create music that could invite those who are not really familiar with classical music," he said.
This bred his fascination with making music fun. In one example, "Bounce!!," he used the instrumentation to mimic the sound of a bouncing basketball.
In his work as a professor at SDSU, Kim is also seeing a whole new generation of composers discover ways to make music feel fun and familiar.
"Every generation is different in terms of where they get their first influences from, and a lot of them get their first musical experience from video games — which is slightly different than for us, it was animation or Disney music," Kim said.
The video game experience is different, and thus the approach is different. Plus, with consistently advancing and evolving technology, he's hoping that young composers take the time to find their own agency.
"What is important to me as an educator is to nurture their executive role — to encourage them to be more executive and build and season their tastes to find what's better music. Because someone needs to answer and be in charge of deciding — if an AI can generate a hundred million songs, but somebody is responsible for selecting, eventually, in terms of programming," he said. "Because of that, perspective and taste matter a lot more, and taste comes from exposure, life experiences and a more holistic approach to music … knowing more theory, knowing more history, knowing more everything."
That holistic approach — Kim's chemistry — is part and parcel of his composition. When "Welcome Home!!" debuts on the Jacobs Music Hall stage this fall, it will serve as more than just a fun and impressive fanfare for a new stage. It's a tapestry of stories of home.
'Welcome Home!!' – Jacobs Music Center Opening Night
6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28.
Jacobs Music Center, 1245 Seventh Ave., downtown.
$113+.
