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A Korean sound engineer has been honored to see a classical music album he worked on win a Grammy Award.
Hwang Byeong-joon, the president of Sound/Mirror Korea, worked as an assistant sound engineer on the production of "Grechaninov: Passion Week," a collection of songs by the Russian composer.
The album won the Best Engineered Album award in the classical category at the 50th Grammy Awards held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Monday.
John Newton, Hwang's teacher and the president of the U.S. headquarters of Sound/Mirror, received the award at the event on behalf of the company. But Hwang received warm praise from conductor Charles Bruffy and the members of the Phoenix Bach Choir and the Kansas City Chorale, who also participated in the making of the album.
Hwang was an electrical engineering student at Seoul National University, but he loved music so much that he worked as a disc jockey at the university¡¯s music hall and was an ardent member of a Christian singing club at the school.
After graduating from SNU, Hwang went to the U.S. to study sound engineering at the Berklee College of Music. He joined Sound/Mirror, one of the world's leading recording studios, in 1999.
As an apprentice, Hwang had to start at the bottom -- which meant cleaning the studio. When the world-famous Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli came to the U.S. for a performance, Hwang had to drive a truck loaded with recording equipment over 1,500 km.
"I left at five in the morning and arrived at the concert venue at 10 in the evening, after 17 hours of driving. Then without taking even a short break, I had to install all the equipment all night long," Hwang said with a smile.
During another recording session at a remote country church, Hwang had to get a dog and set up owl decoys to drive away noisy birds and ducks from a nearby field.
"I liked working with famous artists, but what was more rewarding for me was learning through firsthand experience in the field," Hwang said.
The 41-year-old engineer now travels between Korea and the U.S. as the chief of the company's first overseas office, set up in Korea in May 2005 with Newton's permission.
The Korean office has been involved in the production of original soundtracks for films such as "A Tale of Two Sisters" and "Scandal."
Hwang now dreams of the day when he can introduce traditional Korean music to the world in addition to doing his best to engineer excellent classical albums.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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