TIMF

Tongyeong International Music Festival
Official Logo for TIMF-Tongyeong International Music Festival
Genre	Classical music
Dates	Spring
Location(s)	Tongyeong, South Korea
Years active	2002–present
Website
http://www.timf.org

Tongyeong International Music Festival (Korean: 통영국제음악제), abbreviated TIMF, is an annual music festival held in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. Considering the classification between ethnic and artistic categories, TIMF may be classified into one of Korea's leading arts and music festivals which is specialized in western music, i.e. with a variety of style and genre, such as contemporary, early(baroque), classical, romantic, traditional, symphonic, chamber or ensemble, operatic or music theater. In spite of its various appetite for genre, TIMF is usually known as being strong in contemporary program of western style music.

The origin of this festival results from the spirit to commemorate Isang Yun(윤이상; 1917~1995), a world-renowned composer who was born in Tongyeong and lived the latter part of life in Berlin, Germany. Tongyeong is his birthplace and also a city where Yun settled down and took the first job of teaching at high schools. At 39, Yun moved to Europe to study, and settled down in Berlin University of the Arts, Germany. As a full-time professor, he educated so many young artists whether they are composers or players, and many of his disciples were Koreans or from Korea.

Isang Yun's Korean disciples were the ones that led TIMF project to be feasible. They first sought for sponsorship from the municipal government in order to present an introductory concert titled as 'Night of Isang Yun's Music'. This singular concert was held in 1999 and found itself to be successful thanks to hails of so many Korean artists.

The disciples were encouraged by this success, and they tried to develop it into Tongyeong Contemporary Music Festival. This Festival is now recognized as an archetype of TIMF's current format, and on its threshold, it was a reformatory challenge to extend a singular concert to a form of a three-days festival.