But that all changed over the past few weeks, with artists and promoters having to cancel more than 50,000 shows due to the pandemic. And there is no telling when it will be deemed safe again to gather in large numbers.

That’s left musicians without a major source of income. A growing number of artists, including Erykah Badu and the DJ Diplo, are instead performing live via apps like Instagram and YouTube. But there’s typically no easy way to sell tickets, sponsorships or merchandise.

To help artists navigate this new economy, Bandsintown has partnered with Twitch, the livestreaming site owned by Amazon.com. Starting this week, any musicians registered on Bandsintown that have at least 2,000 followers will be able to collect money from live performances on Twitch.

Currently, most artists who want to make money from Twitch need to submit an application and wait for approval. Bandsintown is fast-tracking the process to help artists collect revenue from advertising and online tips.

“There are massive cancellations of events happening,” said Fabrice Sergent, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Bandsintown. “We immediately felt we could reshuffle our product road map to offer artists the ability to not just offer physical live events, but virtual concerts.”

As governments ask people across the world to stay home, a growing number of artists have responded to their newfound confinement by streaming live on the internet. John Legend and Anitta raised money for charity via performances on Instagram, and DJ D-Nice used it to host the biggest dance party on the internet. Other artists have taken to Twitch and YouTube. Country singer Orville Peck is performing on all three.

Live online concerts have spread so rapidly that it’s getting hard for fans to keep track. Bandsintown has already changed its artist pages so that any of its 530,000 registered musicians can post a notice of an upcoming livestream, including where to watch and when. Bandsintown is also hosting a live music festival Thursday on Twitch.

For some acts, touring is their biggest single source of revenue.

“It’s our means of livelihood,” said Tarriona Ball, known to her fans as Tank, the lead singer of Tank and the Bangas. “If we aren’t touring, where is the money at?”

Tank and the Bangas had to suspend the tour for their latest album, “Green Balloon,” right ahead of festival season. The band lost upward of $50,000 from canceled plane flights and other appearances.

While Ball can survive for a couple of months without touring, her bandmates and crew might not be so lucky. She is going to perform Thursday as part of two-day music marathon featuring 16 artists per day that Bandsintown is organizing on Twitch. It will raise money for people put out of work by the virus.

Bandsintown’s first livestream on Twitch, featuring electronic artist Black Coffee, was watched by more than 84,500 people.

Money from livestreaming may not offset lost revenue from touring in the short term. Nor will it pay all the crew members who live tour to tour. But performing shows for large audiences online can help musicians in the long run.

“Most artists may simply not only keep in touch but also expand their following and audiences,” Sergent said. “A problem may turn into an opportunity for many artists.”

The sensationally popular song achieved the feat in one year and nine months after its official release in June 2018.

That makes “Ddu-du Ddu-du” the most-watched YouTube music video by a K-pop band, as well as the only music video by a K-pop band that topped the 1 billion YouTube view milestone.

BLACKPINK is the second ever K-pop musicians after PSY to collect more than 1 billion YouTube views. (Yonhap)

His favorite moment, he said, was in 2013 while they were recording their final duet together called “You Can’t Make Old Friends.” At one point, he looked up and saw Parton was no longer at her microphone. Suddenly, she appeared by his side, and put her arms around his neck. “Kenny, I think you should know,” she told him. “I could never sing at your funeral.”

Rogers laughed at the memory. “I went, ‘So we’re assuming I’m going first?’ ” He chuckled again. “But I love her for that. You never know what she’s going to say, but it always comes from love.”

Listening to the song, Parton’s train of thought makes sense – the ballad includes the lines, “What will I do when you’re gone? Who’s gonna tell me the truth? . . . How will I sing when you’re gone? Cause it won’t sound the same.” Those lyrics became even more poignant this past weekend, when Rogers died at age 81. Tributes to the country-pop superstar poured in, and on Saturday morning, Parton posted an emotional video on social media. She said she learned the news after turning on the TV.

“I loved Kenny with all my heart, and my heart’s broken,” Parton said, choking up as she held a framed picture of the two of them. “I know you’re sad as I am. God bless you, Kenny.”

After the news of Rogers’s death, his famed hit “The Gambler” rocketed up to No. 1 on the iTunes charts. The No. 2 spot? Karaoke favorite “Islands in the Stream,” his iconic 1983 duet with Parton. But as much as people have loved the musical collaborations between Rogers and Parton, there is also a long-running obsession with their nearly four-decade friendship.

It was a favorite topic in interviews, and Rogers and Parton were constantly asked if they had ever been more than friends, even though they always said no. “We all want you to get together!” Gayle King said in 2013 when Rogers stopped by “CBS This Morning.”

“We’re both married. Why would you want us to get together?” Rogers responded, smiling, as the anchors laughed and King quickly started to walk back the question. “In all fairness, Dolly and I have been accused of having an affair for the last 30 years. And we never did.” He added that they indulged in some “harmless” flirting, but that was all.

What was most important, he said, was their friendship: “She’s one of those rare people that if she walked in the door and I hadn’t seen her in five years, it would be like we were together yesterday.”

The two first crossed paths in Nashville, Tennessee in the early days of their careers, and he helped her when she headlined a syndicated TV show in the 1970s.

“Kenny was a big star, and I couldn’t get any people on my show,” Parton told the Associated Press in 1990. “Kenny said ‘I’ll do it,’ and I’ll never forget it. He’s always been there for me as a friend.”

Nearly a decade later, Rogers was in the recording studio with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, who had just co-written “Islands in the Stream” and decided to give it to Rogers. After a few days trying to record, Rogers didn’t like how it sounded and was ready to give up. According to Rogers, Gibb said, “You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton.”

By coincidence, Rogers told People magazine, Parton happened to be the same studio that day. Rogers’s manager went to go find her. “She came marching into the room, and once she came in and started singing the song was never the same. It took on a personality of its own,” Rogers said.

“Islands in the Stream” became a massive hit when it was released in 1983 and fueled interest in Rogers and Parton as a duo – they released a Christmas album and filmed a TV special and started touring together. “We didn’t plan it. People just put us together because they liked us together,” Parton said in 1986. “We did that one song and out of that came years of concerts and friendship.”

Their easygoing chemistry remained the same for decades, as they could quickly veer from joking (“So this is my lead-in for me to talk about how handsome you are,” Parton said dryly in a 2013 Great American Country interview when Rogers called her “gorgeous”) to introspective: “One of the things that affects a relationship when you’re working with someone is your upbringing and your background,” Rogers said on an episode of Parton’s show in the ’80s, noting that they had similar family situations and religious beliefs. “She’s a very special person who has a very special place in my life.”

They collaborated on more duets through the years: “Real Love” in 1985; “Love is Strange” in 1990; Rogers recorded the Parton solo-written “Undercover” in 2003. And finally, “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” which was nominated at the 2014 Grammy Awards for country duo/group performance. Even though they didn’t write it, they considered it autobiographical.

“[‘Islands in the Stream’] was a song about objective people. This was about us,” Rogers said in the 2013 GAC special. “And I think that shouldn’t go unnoticed.”

They clearly knew how meaningful their partnership was to fans – Parton also used her tribute video on Saturday to comfort people about the world’s current nightmarish situation.

“I know that we all know Kenny’s in a better place than we are today. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to be talking to God sometime today if he’s ain’t already,” she said. “And he’s going to be asking him to spread some light onto this darkness going on here.”

“I went into this spiral of like, ‘Oh my God, why did I think I was cool enough to call Taylor Swift? That was so embarrassing, of course she didn’t pick up. Why am I even out here? Why am I writing songs in L.A.? What if I put a beat drop on these songs? Is Nashville going to be mad that I have a beat drop on these songs instead of a banjo? Should I be home right now?” Ballerini, 26, recalled during a recent interview.

To calm down, she turned to the therapeutic method she has used since she was 12 years old: songwriting. She didn’t have a guitar with her, so she wrote a poem: “Sometimes it feels like it’s all real, but nothing here is as it seems / I ask myself, does it feed my soul or my anxiety?” The lines eventually turned into the lyrics for “LA,” the final track on her third studio album, “Kelsea,” released Friday.

“Kelsea,” which features songwriting collaborations with Nashville writers along with Ed Sheeran and Julia Michaels, is deeply personal as it dives into Ballerini’s insecurities and vulnerabilities. They might seem like unusual topics, given that Ballerini is at the height of her success: She’s had Grammy nominations, a string of No. 1s on country radio, a headlining arena tour, two certified-gold albums, a platinum-selling duet with the Chainsmokers (“This Feeling”) and stints on TV shows including “The Voice” and “Songland.”

But it’s been a long road. When Ballerini was in high school and traveled from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Nashville to see if her love of songwriting could turn into a career, label executives were puzzled when they saw a blond teenage country singer with a guitar. Didn’t they already have Swift? After many doors shut in her face, she was determined to make her music stand out. Her first hit, “Love Me Like You Mean It,” was bursting with self-confidence, and similar “bops” (Ballerini’s word) such as “Dibs,” “Yeah Boy” and “Miss Me More” followed suit. But this new record intentionally has a more introspective tone, Ballerini said, because she finally took a break from nonstop touring and had time for self-reflection.

“I had to get to know myself at 26 and realize that I’m not the same person who wrote the first or second albums,” Ballerini said. “I still have bits of that confidence and that swagger in this album. But it’s definitely paired with a lot more truth-telling.”

– – –

Even though Swift’s presence loomed large when Ballerini launched her career, the two became good friends and share a sensibility about fans: If you can relate to them on the most basic level, they will be loyal to you for life.

For years, Ballerini’s loyal fan base (now 3 million combined followers on Instagram and Twitter) has witnessed her go from playing clubs to selling out arenas, saw photos from her oceanside wedding to country singer Morgan Evans, and watched her cry with her mom when her second record, “Unapologetically,” received a Grammy nomination for best country album. But they have also seen her have dance parties, indulge in her love of fast-food chicken nuggets, watch “The Bachelor” and take her dog, Dibs, for walks in the rain.

“Since I first started, I was always like, ‘I just want to be the same person that I am out with my friends or on the couch with Morgan and Dibs that I am onstage,'” Ballerini said. “There’s also a lot of people that I’m seeing right now that are overly filtered, and I don’t want that to be what young girls are thinking is normal.”

Ballerini has always been candid about her challenges, even as she hit her stride. She admitted on Bobby Bones’s podcast in 2017 that she felt like some people in Nashville didn’t find her very “cool” because of her pop-infused country songs. Earlier that year, after performing on the Academy of Country Music Awards, she posted a defiant Instagram caption: “I wear a lot of glitter, I have bass drops and programmed beats in my songs and performances. But ya know what, I write, sing, and LOVE country music.”

So when writing this album, Ballerini doubled down on exploring tough questions: “Why am I so anxious all the time? Why all of a sudden am I the most insecure person that I know?” She realized if she was having those feelings, other people probably were too, no matter their level of success. It all culminated during a weekend while she was touring last year with Kelly Clarkson and invited top Nashville songwriters Nicolle Galyon and Jimmy Robbins to join her for a few days on the road.

“For different reasons, we were all in really vulnerable places,” Galyon said. As the three brainstormed ideas, something clicked as they shared personal details. She and Ballerini both cried. Over those few days on the tour bus, they wrote songs that altered Ballerini’s entire idea for the album. “I think we knew and she knew that she had begun writing the record.”

They wrote a ballad called “Homecoming Queen?” about the facade of perfection: Just because things in your life are going right, it doesn’t mean you’re devoid of pain. (“What if I told you the world wouldn’t end? If you started showing what’s under your skin? / What if you let ’em all in on the lie? Even the homecoming queen cries.”)

Ballerini’s transparency comes through in other tracks: her nerves about connecting with people on “Overshare”; social anxiety on “Club” (and the realization in your mid-20s that nightclubs are the worst; feeling jealous on “The Other Girl,” which features pop star Halsey. However, she felt that “Homecoming Queen?” so perfectly captured the tone of the album that she wanted to release it as the first single, a risky move in a genre often wary of ballads. But it’s currently in the Top 20 at country radio.

“It wasn’t the traditional bop that I normally put out,” Ballerini said. “But I think it was time for me as a songwriter to really show that side of myself.”

– – –

Shane McAnally, one of Nashville’s most successful songwriters and Ballerini’s frequent collaborator, was in awe of her writing skills the first time they met. “She would be having hits everywhere with other people if she wasn’t cutting them herself,” he said. “She’s that good.” (Galyon agreed, adding, “I’ve joked that if Kelsea wasn’t so busy being a superstar, she would steal my job.”)

This record features the most “traditional” country songs Ballerini has ever had on an album: the pointedly named “A Country Song”; drinking jam “Hole in the Bottle”; and “Half of My Hometown,” which, to her amazement, features backup vocals from country superstar Kenny Chesney. The two of them connected years ago when Chesney, a fellow Knoxville native, texted her a picture he saw of her on a billboard in New York City and wrote, “Proud of you, hometown girl. Love, Kenny.”

“I didn’t know that he even knew who I was,” Ballerini said. Now that she’s in a position of power, she has the same support for newer artists. When a country radio programmer recently went viral for admitting that her station was barred from playing two female singers in a row (an unspoken rule of thumb in country radio, where women make up only 10 percent of airplay), Ballerini wrote a long Instagram post and called it “unfair and incredibly disappointing,” especially on behalf of newer singers trying to break in the business.

At first she was hesitant, given her radio success – yet she knew this was the time to use the large platform she’s earned over the years. “I never wanted to say anything that would sound ungrateful,” she said. “But when you see something that blatant … that was when I need, with as much grace as possible, to try to protect this next round of females that are moving to Nashville.”

“I went into this spiral of like, ‘Oh my God, why did I think I was cool enough to call Taylor Swift? That was so embarrassing, of course she didn’t pick up. Why am I even out here? Why am I writing songs in L.A.? What if I put a beat drop on these songs? Is Nashville going to be mad that I have a beat drop on these songs instead of a banjo? Should I be home right now?” Ballerini, 26, recalled during a recent interview.

To calm down, she turned to the therapeutic method she has used since she was 12 years old: songwriting. She didn’t have a guitar with her, so she wrote a poem: “Sometimes it feels like it’s all real, but nothing here is as it seems / I ask myself, does it feed my soul or my anxiety?” The lines eventually turned into the lyrics for “LA,” the final track on her third studio album, “Kelsea,” released Friday.

“Kelsea,” which features songwriting collaborations with Nashville writers along with Ed Sheeran and Julia Michaels, is deeply personal as it dives into Ballerini’s insecurities and vulnerabilities. They might seem like unusual topics, given that Ballerini is at the height of her success: She’s had Grammy nominations, a string of No. 1s on country radio, a headlining arena tour, two certified-gold albums, a platinum-selling duet with the Chainsmokers (“This Feeling”) and stints on TV shows including “The Voice” and “Songland.”

But it’s been a long road. When Ballerini was in high school and traveled from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Nashville to see if her love of songwriting could turn into a career, label executives were puzzled when they saw a blond teenage country singer with a guitar. Didn’t they already have Swift? After many doors shut in her face, she was determined to make her music stand out. Her first hit, “Love Me Like You Mean It,” was bursting with self-confidence, and similar “bops” (Ballerini’s word) such as “Dibs,” “Yeah Boy” and “Miss Me More” followed suit. But this new record intentionally has a more introspective tone, Ballerini said, because she finally took a break from nonstop touring and had time for self-reflection.

“I had to get to know myself at 26 and realize that I’m not the same person who wrote the first or second albums,” Ballerini said. “I still have bits of that confidence and that swagger in this album. But it’s definitely paired with a lot more truth-telling.”

– – –

Even though Swift’s presence loomed large when Ballerini launched her career, the two became good friends and share a sensibility about fans: If you can relate to them on the most basic level, they will be loyal to you for life.

For years, Ballerini’s loyal fan base (now 3 million combined followers on Instagram and Twitter) has witnessed her go from playing clubs to selling out arenas, saw photos from her oceanside wedding to country singer Morgan Evans, and watched her cry with her mom when her second record, “Unapologetically,” received a Grammy nomination for best country album. But they have also seen her have dance parties, indulge in her love of fast-food chicken nuggets, watch “The Bachelor” and take her dog, Dibs, for walks in the rain.

“Since I first started, I was always like, ‘I just want to be the same person that I am out with my friends or on the couch with Morgan and Dibs that I am onstage,'” Ballerini said. “There’s also a lot of people that I’m seeing right now that are overly filtered, and I don’t want that to be what young girls are thinking is normal.”

Ballerini has always been candid about her challenges, even as she hit her stride. She admitted on Bobby Bones’s podcast in 2017 that she felt like some people in Nashville didn’t find her very “cool” because of her pop-infused country songs. Earlier that year, after performing on the Academy of Country Music Awards, she posted a defiant Instagram caption: “I wear a lot of glitter, I have bass drops and programmed beats in my songs and performances. But ya know what, I write, sing, and LOVE country music.”

So when writing this album, Ballerini doubled down on exploring tough questions: “Why am I so anxious all the time? Why all of a sudden am I the most insecure person that I know?” She realized if she was having those feelings, other people probably were too, no matter their level of success. It all culminated during a weekend while she was touring last year with Kelly Clarkson and invited top Nashville songwriters Nicolle Galyon and Jimmy Robbins to join her for a few days on the road.

“For different reasons, we were all in really vulnerable places,” Galyon said. As the three brainstormed ideas, something clicked as they shared personal details. She and Ballerini both cried. Over those few days on the tour bus, they wrote songs that altered Ballerini’s entire idea for the album. “I think we knew and she knew that she had begun writing the record.”

They wrote a ballad called “Homecoming Queen?” about the facade of perfection: Just because things in your life are going right, it doesn’t mean you’re devoid of pain. (“What if I told you the world wouldn’t end? If you started showing what’s under your skin? / What if you let ’em all in on the lie? Even the homecoming queen cries.”)

Ballerini’s transparency comes through in other tracks: her nerves about connecting with people on “Overshare”; social anxiety on “Club” (and the realization in your mid-20s that nightclubs are the worst; feeling jealous on “The Other Girl,” which features pop star Halsey. However, she felt that “Homecoming Queen?” so perfectly captured the tone of the album that she wanted to release it as the first single, a risky move in a genre often wary of ballads. But it’s currently in the Top 20 at country radio.

“It wasn’t the traditional bop that I normally put out,” Ballerini said. “But I think it was time for me as a songwriter to really show that side of myself.”

– – –

Shane McAnally, one of Nashville’s most successful songwriters and Ballerini’s frequent collaborator, was in awe of her writing skills the first time they met. “She would be having hits everywhere with other people if she wasn’t cutting them herself,” he said. “She’s that good.” (Galyon agreed, adding, “I’ve joked that if Kelsea wasn’t so busy being a superstar, she would steal my job.”)

This record features the most “traditional” country songs Ballerini has ever had on an album: the pointedly named “A Country Song”; drinking jam “Hole in the Bottle”; and “Half of My Hometown,” which, to her amazement, features backup vocals from country superstar Kenny Chesney. The two of them connected years ago when Chesney, a fellow Knoxville native, texted her a picture he saw of her on a billboard in New York City and wrote, “Proud of you, hometown girl. Love, Kenny.”

“I didn’t know that he even knew who I was,” Ballerini said. Now that she’s in a position of power, she has the same support for newer artists. When a country radio programmer recently went viral for admitting that her station was barred from playing two female singers in a row (an unspoken rule of thumb in country radio, where women make up only 10 percent of airplay), Ballerini wrote a long Instagram post and called it “unfair and incredibly disappointing,” especially on behalf of newer singers trying to break in the business.

At first she was hesitant, given her radio success – yet she knew this was the time to use the large platform she’s earned over the years. “I never wanted to say anything that would sound ungrateful,” she said. “But when you see something that blatant … that was when I need, with as much grace as possible, to try to protect this next round of females that are moving to Nashville.”

From Bieber and director Michael D Ratner, this is the fourth and final instalment of the Apple x Bieber official nature music video limited series.

This is the exclusive visual for the hit track Available off of Changes, Justin’s seventh #1 worldwide album. The visuals for Available start with an intimate piano performance by Bieber before the official track kicks in.

From there, Bieber combines his love for nature, music and art as he performs atop a spray-painted baby grand against a scenic hilltop backdrop. The series finale brings together graffiti-inspired animation with dynamic aerial shots.

Bieber had previously debuted “E.T.A.,” “Changes,” and “Habitual”, which became his seventh No 1 on the Billboard last month.

His upcoming fourth concert “Changes Tour,” will kick off on May 14 in Seattle, United States, with special guests Kehlani and Jaden Smith.

This is a shame, especially considering that there’s a photo of Lil Uzi Vert that deserves to be hanging inside every American dorm room or at least the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was taken at Miami’s Rolling Loud festival in 2018, and it finds our hero stage-diving off a lighting truss from more than 20 feet above the adoring crowd. It could easily pass as a reenactment of Yves Klein’s “Leap Into the Void,” a photograph taken in 1960 in which the French conceptual artist flung himself from a second-story window, generating a breathtaking metaphor for the artist’s journey into the unknowable. Thing is, Klein’s leap was faked. Uzi’s was real.

But on the rapper’s new album, “Eternal Atake,” reality is a slippery concept. “I live my life like a cartoon,” he declares on “You Better Move,” a song in which everything feels tart and loud. “Reality is not my move.” His voice leaps an octave on the final word of each line, as if he’s trying to repeatedly jump clean out of his life, but the real world still casts its shadows. In the song’s first verse, Uzi defends his freaky sartorial choices with crushing rationale: “They say, “Why your chain it look like a choker?’ That’s for the slaves that had to wear the noose.”

In a Lil Uzi Vert song, anything and everything goes, with cosmetic emo sadness and profound ancestral trauma swirling together into a litany of brags that feel like high-fructose fun until you realize how depressing they are. Smothering his heartbreak in money on “Chrome Heart Tags,” Lil Uzi says, “I don’t ever wanna talk about it,” then consoles himself with a luxury shopping spree. “Bust Me” features an even bolder, sadder flex: “When you got this type of money, you are never ugly.”

On “P2,” he reprises the melody from “XO Tour Lif3,” a signature 2017 hit that finds two star-crossed lovers threatening suicide in the form of a pop hook: “Push me to the edge, all my friends are dead.” Three years later, Lil Uzi is rapping about a similar romantic deadlock, but he de-escalates the tension with a numb shrug: “Everything I said, messing with your head.” Instead of plunging into the void, he steps back from the precipice.

Bonus paragraph about the two bonus tracks: “That Way” jacks the melody from the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” which is a tedious move, but Lil Uzi knows it, so sings the hook straight out of his sinuses. It sounds like a playground taunt: Nyaa-nyaa-nya-nyaa-nyaaa. “Futsal Shuffle 2020” is sweeter and twitchier, the kind of song that makes you feel like it’s eating your brain, specifically any neural tissue that might object to the idea of “Futsal Shuffle 2020” being the greatest song you’ve ever heard.

As of Saturday morning (Korean time), “Map of the Soul: 7” landed atop the iTunes “top album” charts in 91 countries and regions, including the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Russia, India, Japan and Saudi Arabia, according to Big Hit Entertainment.

This marks the broadest iTunes chart dominance for any BTS album, Big Hit said.

The album’s lead track, “ON,” also topped iTunes “top song” charts in 83 countries and regions including the U.S., Canada, Italy, Japan and Egypt, adding to the band’s iTunes chart victories.

About five more tracks from the new album, including “Filter,” also made the top 10 of the iTunes top song charts in the U.S. and Britain.

The septet dropped the 20-track album a day earlier, kicking off another round of its globally-acclaimed musical journey.

The lead song, “ON,” was an immediate hit in the group’s home country, topping the real-time single charts by all the five major music streaming services, including Melon and Genie Music. One day after the release, “ON” was still atop the charts.

The new album also made album sales history in South Korea, selling more than 2.65 million copies on the first day of its release on Friday. That was the biggest volume of first-day album sales for any BTS album and exceeded the sales of 2.13 million copies recorded in the first week by the previous BTS album, “Map of the Soul: Persona.”

It took only two hours this time for “7” to surpass the previous first-week sales of 2.13 million copies, Big Hit said.

About one day after the release of the music video of “ON,” it collected nearly 44 million views on YouTube.

Also on Saturday, another BTS music video, “Spring Day,” topped 300 million YouTube views, the 12th BTS music video to have collected more than 300 million views on the video-sharing platform, according to Big Hit. (Yonhap)

For Park Jong-seong, the harmonica is a sophisticated instrument with great versatility.

The 34-year-old is a harmonica player, a rare profession in the local music scene. Although many pick up the instrument as a hobby, especially seniors, the number of professional harmonicists remains limited.

Park is therefore unique, having won awards at international competitions in Japan, China and Germany. He has also released three solo albums.

The third album, released in 2019, includes harmonica performances of various genres, from classical music to jazz, tango and folk music.

The artist stressed that the instrument is highly adaptable to different genres.

“One of the reasons is that the reed is very small and sensitive. In other words, it means it can be diversified into different sounds like a chameleon,” Park told The Korea Herald in an interview in western Seoul.

“That is what I love about the harmonica. I do not prefer a specific genre of music, but love all kinds of music,” he said. “Plus, it is small and easy to carry around.”

Park’s wide range of interests stems from his studies. He graduated from Kyung Hee University’s Department of Post-Modern Music. He was the first in Korea to be admitted to a university with the harmonica.

“Though I was accepted to the school as a harmonica player, the curriculum was not solely limited to the instrument,” the artist said. “I studied jazz and more, learning different genres of music from Latin to tango, gugak (traditional Korean music) and more.”

Though Park strives to be bold and adventurous with the instrument, the number of works intended for the harmonica is limited. Not many original pieces are made for the instrument, so Park composes his own music.

“Compared to classical music instruments, the harmonica has had a very short history. To put it simply, the harmonica has not yet met a great composer like Beethoven or Mozart,” he said.

“I always had to play works originally written for other instruments. Of course, that was fun, too. However, there are not many works that can bring out the unique characteristics of the harmonica. As I know the instrument better than others, I began to write songs for the harmonica.”

At a practice room in western Seoul, Park regularly holds recitals, conferences and study sessions for harmonica players, hoping to contribute to the growth of the scene.

“I do not just dream of my personal success,” he said. “I hope to encourage more harmonica players. In turn, the growth of the scene will lead to my own success, right?”

Park is slated to give solo performances at the Seoul Arts Center on March 25 and Lotte Concert Hall on Oct. 23.

On Valentine’s Day, would you like to go with your loved one to an extravagant dinner with oysters flown in from France or rather go to an exciting concert of romantic music with a 70-piece symphony orchestra or spend the evening curled up on the sofa with your sweetheart watching a favourite Hollywood tearjerker and a glass of champagne?

Opera Siam’s “A Love Letter from Hollywood” gives you the chance to do all of the above — at a single event.

There’s the concert — join Siam Sinfonietta, Nadlada “Bow” Thamtanakom, and the Cherubim Choir — and a lot of oysters — for an incredible Valentine’s evening — “A Love Letter from Hollywood” — a 100 years of the most romantic film music from the most iconic Hollywood films. From noble love to twisted love, from love across a crowded room to love across the galaxy, from epic love to obsessive love … this is music from the movies that shaped our lives. Maestro Somtow Sucharitkul takes us on a journey through the history of love in the movies. Tickets range from Bt500 to Bt1,500 — less with group discounts.

Siam Sinfonietta, equally known for its mastery of the hardest repertoire in classical music (Mahler, Bartok, Stravinsky) and its populist concerts such as its Star Wars, Harry Potter and “The Princess Concert” event, will field 70 musicians plus the sweet voices of the Cherubim Choir. Thai diva from the Belgian National Opera, Nadlada Thamtanakom, will assure all of us that our “heart will go on”.

There are add-ons. Get a VIP seat and a stupendous reception with seafood including imported oysters and free-flow Chandon when contributing Bt3,000, or donate Bt600 and enjoy the Sweetheart Reception in the Half Circle Room, with all-you-can-eat sushi and other delicacies and a glass of Chandon.

Special discounts: 5 per cent for five or more tickets, 10 per cent for 10 or more, and 20 per cent for 20 or more.

For tickets, please visit ticketmelon.com/operasiam/loveletter or contact via Line application at the official account of opera siam.