'Dunggeulge Dunggeulge' and 'Apeuro' Creative Children's Song Giant Lee Su-in Passes Away

Composed Over 500 Children's Songs and 150 Art Songs... Many Included in Textbooks
Led the Revival of Art Songs Even in Later Years... 'Gohyangui Norae', 'Byeol', 'Nae Mamui Gangmul'

"Round and round, round and round / Let's dance spinning around / Clapping hands while singing / La la la, let's dance joyfully (Round and round)." Composer Lee Su-in, who brought children together holding hands with lively rhythms and lyrics, passed away on the 22nd due to a long illness. He was 82 years old.

The late composer, originally from Uiryeong, Gyeongnam, was a giant in original children's songs. He graduated from the Composition Department of Seorabeol Arts University in 1959 and worked as a teacher at Masan Seongji Girls' Middle School and Masan Jeil Girls' Middle and High School. It is said that he started composing because there were not enough children's songs to teach his students. The number of songs he composed reached 500. Representative songs include "Forward," a march set to the poem by Yoon Seok-jung, "Since the Earth is round, if you keep walking / You will meet all the children of the world," and "Cotton Candy," with lyrics like "Cotton candy I ate when going out holding mom's hand / Blow, blow, and a big cotton candy with holes appears." Many of his songs were included in textbooks, leading the development of children's song culture.

In 1965, he founded the Masan Children's Broadcasting Station Children's Choir and Korea's first Mothers' Choir. The Mothers' Choir performed in front of First Lady Yuk Young-soo at the Blue House in 1967. He moved to Seoul in 1968 and worked as the conductor of the KBS Children's Choir. His representative art song "Song of Hometown" was released around this time. He composed the song to the words sent on a postcard by his friend and poet Kim Jae-ho: "In the winter yard where chrysanthemums have withered / When you open the window, white frost falls / The blue-winged wild geese fly north."

He released over 150 lyrical art songs such as "Star," "River of My Heart," and "Seokguram," earning the nickname "Schubert of the East." His status in the children's song world was equally prominent. He served as the director of the KBS Children's Choir in 1981 and founded the Parangsae Original Children's Song Association, a group of children's song composers, in 1990. He also served as president of the Korean Children's Song Lyricists and Composers Association in 2006. Through his prolific activities, he received numerous awards including the Korean Children's Music Award (1978), the Grand Prize for Korean Children's Song Composition (1988), the Korea 5.5 Cultural Award in the Children's Music category (1996), and the Half Moon Children's Song Award (2000). In 1996, he was also honored with the "Most Literary Composer Award" by the Korean Writers' Association.

In his later years, he led the revival of art songs. In 2010, he released another representative song, "Full Moon," and until last year, he hosted the "Seongsan Salon Concert" at his home in Seongsan-dong, Seoul, gathering enthusiasts. His publications include "Student Choir Songbook," "Children's Country," "River of My Heart," "Lee Su-in's Lyric Art Song Collection for High Pitch," "Composer Lee Su-in's Music and Life," "Song of Hometown," and his 2012 autobiography "River of My Heart." His surviving family includes his essayist wife Kim Bok-im and his son Moon Kyu, a violinist. The funeral is being held at the Seoul Sinchon Severance Hospital funeral hall, and the burial site is the family graveyard in Uiryeong, Gyeongnam.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.