What We Do (Three Key Pillars)

The Korean Art-Song Cultural Bridge Project includes three broad scopes of work, all oriented toward the practice of peace and community-building through this unique tradition.

  • These workshops provide a participatory space where K-Art Song performance and collective storytelling meet, one where audiences from many cultural backgrounds co-experience Korean Art Song Stories and connect them with their own, unique narratives. In these workshops, we pair select Korean Art Songs with specific themes in order to create a transformative discussion around the universal human spirit, transcending time and culture, and fostering moral imagination toward empathy: Resonant Crossroads of Human Compassion. We aim to deliver storytelling workshops that foster empathy and cultivate dialogue space for peace and community-building.

    • (1) Blog Commentary

    The K-Art Song Blog puts forward narrative case studies of the K-Art Song tradition and its embedded historical context. These explorations aim to stimulate dialogue open to artists across all stages of life, from emerging young talent to experienced and established creators, scholars from interdisciplinary fields (including Music and Peacebuilding), and practitioners in the cultural diplomacy field, all towards developing a  better understanding of Korean Art Songs and their use for community-building and collective meaning-making.

    • (2) K-Art Song Narrative Transformation Reports

    We aim to conduct research on the poetic and historical contexts behind Korean Art Songs, exploring how these narratives connect to empathy and the human experience. Furthermore, by capturing post-event observations of intercultural narrative discourse, we demonstrate how shared musical stories can foster cross-cultural empathy and deeper understanding through narrative transformation.

  • A Peace Diplomacy Network for young scholars and singers of Korean Art Song worldwide—linking  Sousino (K-Art Song Academic Society) located in Korea with the *Korean Art Song Resource Team (IPA Resource ) at the University of Michigan. Through both virtual and in-person connections, this youth network envisions mentorship and collaborative projects that foster dialogue and creativity across borders.