Entangled modernities in the culture of Korean music publishing: Challenges in establishing a contemporary Korean art music archive

Western musicology has traditionally treated musical source material-manuscripts, autograph scores, writings, early editions-as an essential component of scholarly investigation. However, scores and other music-related material from contemporary Korean composers, absent any central archiving institution, tend to accumulate only on an individual basis. Recently, South Korean governmental institutions have begun to promote and fund individuals seeking to establish a comprehensive archive for contemporary Korean music; nonetheless, many challenges remain due to the complex nature of music documentation and publishing culture in South Korea. In this article, I suggest that this situation derives from the complex history of the reception of Western music in Korea. I first investigate how the publishing and archival culture of South Korea in general differs from that of Western countries. Further, while emphasising the significance of the preservation of musical source materials in Korea, I critically reflect on the parameters defining musical sources of art music in Western culture that do not quite apply to Korean music archival culture. I also explore what alternative concepts of music should be considered to encourage the assessment and collection of scattered source material. By thus positioning Korea's situation as an example of "entangled modernities" in the music field of a non-Western country, I attempt to mediate the regional situation of Korea's music publishing and archival culture to a "global" discussion of music documentation.