A concert featuring 1,000 Wonju residents as performers is set to take place Saturday at Chiak Gymnasium in Wonju, Gangwon Province.
The event is a citizen-participation music festival in which the 1,000 residents on stage perform alongside their neighbors in the audience.
Audience members will also receive sheet music and are encouraged to sing along to familiar songs, making it difficult to tell where the stage ends and the seats begin.
The concert is designed as an "open stage," welcoming any resident who plays an instrument regardless of age, skill level or musical background.
The 1,000 Wonju performers — playing strings, winds, percussion and other instruments — will present 11 ensemble pieces. Their musicianship is impressive, but the spectacle of 1,000 citizens performing together is itself a moving sight.
The Wonju chapter of the Korea Music Association is organizing the event.
Park Hye-sun, head of Wonju's culture and arts division, said the concert — held for the second time this year, following its debut last year — is "a meaningful festival in which citizens become the protagonists of art." She added that she hopes residents will come and experience firsthand "the grand and moving harmony created by 1,000 citizen performers," and pledged to keep expanding programs that allow citizens to engage with culture and the arts in their everyday lives.
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