Magnus Bäckström,
CEO and Artistic Director of Uppsala Konsert & Kongress,
he talks about Be-Being''s Li & Sa.

Uppsala Konsert & Kongress is a first class state of the art concert house situated in Uppsala, an old university town with 200 000 inhabitants just 40 minutes north of Stockholm.  The concert & congress house was inaugurated three years ago and has rapidly become one of the major music venues in Sweden due to a broad, ambitious and exclusive programming that attracts audiences and attention from all over the country.

As the venue opened Mr. Magnus Bäckström, CEO and Artistic Director, launched a new festival dedicated to sacred music from all religions, all cultures and all times – Uppsala International Sacred Music Festival.  With this festival the organizers aims to focus on the sacred or spiritual dimension within art and music.

At Babel Med in Marseille, France, Magnus Bäckström and his colleagues had the first contact with the representatives from KAMS and were presented a DVD introducing various Korean acts.  Amongst the many interesting possibilities on the DVD they got particularly fond of Be-Being, a young and modern ensemble mixing traditional and contemporary art in an excellent and exciting manner. 

Korean Arts Management Service acted very swiftly and professionally to make this happen, and with the support of KAMS Be-Being and their project “Li & Sa” were invited and presented as one of the high-lights in the fourth edition of Uppsala International Sacred Music Festival. Other international artists and projects this year was Carmen Linares (Spain), The Holmes Brothers (USA), Fennesz (Austria), Houria Aichi (Algeria), Etran Finatawa (Niger) and the multinational project “Jerusalem” signed Jordi Savall (Spain) including some 40 artists from 10 countries.

Be-Being was asked to perform twice since the idea was to build a stronger relationship with the community and the audience than what would have been the case with just a regularly “one-off” concert.  In the same ambition Be-Being also were asked to give a lecture presenting Korean music. 

The challenge for the festival and for Be-Being was quite big. Korean traditional music is something most western people never have experienced and it can be strange for western ears. The structure, the sound idioms, the instruments, the language – almost everything is new and unfamiliar. Will it work!?



It was a success! The response was overwhelming and exceeded all expectations.  The audiences were not the largest in number but the audience response was strong. The ensemble was called back to the stage for extra bows, and Be-Being could really sense that warmth and the strong appreciation from the audience.

Quite a number of the audience stayed behind after the concerts to ask questions about the music, the instruments etc. The people at the first concert must have spread a good word since the number of audience had increased for the second performance.

Since Be-Being´s music has this certain expression the organizers had specially invited some of Uppsala´s modern art community: young painters, electronica artists, young composers  etc.  This turned out to be a success and many expressed their fascination.

- “This was one of the best and most fantastic music experiences of my life”, as Anna Karin Brus, a well known Uppsala modern painter, said.

Be-Being´s music and art was also presented in both local and national Swedish media.

How come this “strange” Korean music worked that wonderfully at a concert in a quite small city in Sweden? Could it be that Be-Being´s music is of such high artistic level as well in composition as in context and performance, and that excellence “goes through”!?

Magnus Bäckström
CEO and Artistic Director, Uppsala Konsert & Kongress