​
JOHN HWANG
 

JOHN HWANG (*1992)

​

He entered the pre-college of violin at the Mozarteum, Austria in 2007, and studied under prof. Jürgen Geise. Also, he studied under Prof. Mayumi Seiler, Frank Stadler, and Michaela Girardi in the bachelor programme in 2009.

While he was studying, he was fascinated by composing that he entered the bachelor programme of composition at the Mozarteum, studied under Prof. Tristan Murail and Prof. Achim Bornhöft. Then, he completed his master's degree with honour. he then continued his studies in the post graduate programme, and graduated in 2021. He was awarded the scholarship from the Mozarteum.

He won the second prize at Christian Doppler Kompositionspreis in 2018, and he used prime number to establish his own original tonal structure. Opening a new prospect in the field of contemporary music, he was awarded with Bernhard-Paumgartner-Medaille in 2020 by the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation  in recognition of his contribution. His composition technique was included in "Korean Composer's Composition Techniques," published by Korean Music Critics Association.

His works were commissioned, invited, and performed by numerous ensembles such as Sinfonieorchester der Universität Mozarteum, Mozart Sinfonietta, Ensemble OENM, Ensemble NAMES, and festivals such as Crossroads Salzburg, eviMus(Saarbrücker Tage für elektroakustische und visuelle Musik), next_generation ZKM Karlsruhe, Sweetspot-Lounge für Elektronische Musik.

His music world centered on math, science, and religion(Christianity) ideas. Especially, his own original scale and tonal structure using prime number are one of the biggest characteristics of his music.

As atoms are the fundamental particles that make up all matter and the smallest unit that cannot be divided in physics, prime numbers are also fundamental elements that make up all numbers and are able to be divided; thus, prime numbers are called atoms of numbers. Prime numbers exist indefinitely, but they are distributed irregularly that humanity does not know prime numbers perfectly. As we can see through the close association with the research of numerous mathematicians and scientists and quantum mechanics centered on the Riemann hypothesis, prime numbers have a significant influence from atomic nuclei to the entire universe, and based on these facts, he used prime numbers in his music. The reason is that sound is also composed of numbers.

Especially, through not only putting prime number, which is the basic element that makes up sound, into frequencies but also various characteristics and array systems of prime number that naturally exist, he is pioneering another path in contemporary music by establishing another fundamental and logical system that can be used very diversely in the future, which is completely different from existing harmonic theory and spectral music.  

​

​