South Korea and America came together to perform percussion music for Eastern Thursday.

The Akademie Percussion Ensemble of South Korea and Galaxy Percussion of the U.S. performed together in the Dvorak Concert Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

The Akademie Percussion Ensemble was started in 1993 by Kang-ku Lee.

Lee said he started the ensemble after he played for an orchestra and he wanted to play percussion music professionally so he, along with some of his colleagues started to have concerts.

Akademie Percussion Ensemble is made up of 24 members in total. Other than himself, there were six other members of Akademie Percussion Ensemble performed during the concert.

Hwan Woong Park, Jun Hwan Lee, In Young Park, Yong Sun Chun, Song Yi Han and Yeon Hwa Shin made up the rest of the ensemble.

Galaxy Percussion was started in 2003 by Michael Udow at a request from marimbas Keiko Abe for a tour in Japan.

Galaxy Percussion consist of Rodger Braun, Anthony DiSanza, Udow and Jamie Ryan.

Each band played compositions familiar to them.

Akademie Percussion Ensemble played compositions from modern Korean composers such as Yong Nan Park, Kyung-Jung Kim and Hae Sung Lee.

Galaxy performed compositions by John Cage, Paulinho Da Viola, Hermeto Pascoal and original compositions from members of Galaxy.

Both groups joined together for the two ending compositions written by members of Galaxy Percussion: “A Spirit Unbroken” by Roger Braun and “Rio Grande Riffs” by Michael Udow.

The pieces played were a mix between western and oriental compositions that were picked by both groups, Lee said.

Braun said he was honored to have both groups playing his compositions.

Ryan, a professor of percussion at Eastern, said that Galaxy Percussion and Akademie Percussion Ensemble toured together late July and early August in 2010.

“We toured there (South Korea) and it was a great success,” Ryan said. “Hopefully this leads to many other tours.”

Lee said he found the American tour similar to the tour in Korea last year.

Lee said the thing he found the most difficult about the tour at first was jetlag and the time difference.

“It’s hard to perform because it’s night here, but it’s day in Korea,”

Lee said.

Lee said he has enjoyed working with the members of Galaxy Percussion because everyone has been so kind and cooperative and harmonious.

While on campus, Galaxy Percussion had a master class for some of the percussion students.

Ryan said six of his students performed for Galaxy and heard what comments they had.

“They played very well, responded very well to the Galaxy members comments, and we just had a lot of fun,” Ryan said.

Lee said that so far on the tour the audiences have responded well to their music.

Madeline Haugh, a sophomore communication studies major, said she has never seen a performance like the concert before.

“They are very into their music, they bobbed their head and were very lively,” Haugh said.

Samantha Devermann, a sophomore communication studies major, said she found the mixture of music interesting.

“They have a range of sounds from soft sounds to intense ones,” Devermann said.

She said she was happy to see them perform.

“I find it interesting that they are touring the country,” Devermann said. “I feel special to get to see them.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.