What happens when K-pop—the trendiest movement in the music world—meets classical, the very pinnacle of the history of music? SM Classics, the classical and jazz label under SM Entertainment, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra have been creating crossover music between these two genres since entering into an agreement with one another in 2020. And this year, on February 14 and 15, SM Classics and the SPO held “SM CLASSICS LIVE 2025 with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.” This groundbreaking performance, the world’s first-ever K-pop orchestra concert, was the culmination of all the work SM Classics has been putting into orchestral arrangements of their artists’ songs since 2020. We spoke with Jihee Jang, a senior staff member at SPO, who oversaw the concert, to get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the performance and find out more about what makes the meeting of K-pop and classical music so significant.
SM Classics and SPO have been working together since putting out their first collaboration, the song “Red Flavor,” in 2020. How did this partnership, including the “SM CLASSICS LIVE 2025 with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra” concert, first come to be?
Jihee Jang: SM Classics came to us first, saying, “We want to do a collaboration between K-pop and orchestral music, and we’d love to do it with the best orchestra in Korea.” It sounded like something new we could try and take on, so we said, “Let’s go for it!” (laughs) In addition to recording music, we talked about music videos right from the start to make it easier for people to get into classical music. And we set off with live concerts as a goal to keep in mind. We’ve been making and recording songs together bit by bit every year and decided the date for the concert in advance last year. Having the concert this year held even more significance for both sides: It’s the 20th anniversary of our organization and the 80th of the orchestra, and it’s also the 30th anniversary of SM Entertainment’s founding. The fact is that K-pop fans don’t usually get the chance to attend classical performances or hear an orchestra play at venues like the Seoul Arts Center, so making this happen for them is quite significant. We were also hoping they could experience a live orchestra firsthand and in that way feel all the grandeur and emotion that makes classical music special.
Some songs, like Red Velvet’s “Feel My Rhythm,” already sample classical songs, but this concert had plenty of new K-pop–classical mashups—like “Growl” by EXO with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 (also known as the “Fate Symphony”) and “Rising Sun” by TVXQ! with the third movement of “Summer” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” How did you decide which K-pop songs would mesh with classical songs?
Jihee Jang: If all you want is to make a simple orchestral arrangement of some K-pop, all you really need to do is change the instruments, but that’s not what they did at SM Classics. They wanted to make entirely new classical music from K-pop songs. It's hard to make a K-pop song like “Feel My Rhythm” by sampling, and to have “Psycho” suddenly mix with Rachmaninoff takes a deep understanding of how both genres flow. SM Classics considers things from several different angles when they’re choosing which songs would sound good with classical and when they arrange them. The classical version of “Feel My Rhythm” was always my favorite, but nothing surprised me quite as much as “Rising Sun” when I heard it during the rehearsals for the concert. There’s already so many layers of sound in the original, but when you hear the most sweeping parts with a strong sense of rhythm from the original in the classical version, it’s fantastic. It seems to inject even more vigor into what makes it so profound and striking when there’s instruments playing it.
Everything from the direction to the target audience for “SM CLASSICS LIVE 2025 with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra” must have been fairly different compared to typical classical concerts. In what ways exactly was this collaborative event different, and where was particular consideration required?
Jihee Jang: Instead of targeting fans of standard classical music, we focused on making it more accessible to K-pop fans and people who might not usually listen to classical music. SPO’s audiences tend to be in their 30s and 40s, but for this concert, we had lots of young people from their teens to their 30s in the audience. Since K-pop fans are used to visual and other effects onstage in particular, and might therefore find an orchestra playing by itself a bit boring, we spiced things up with visuals like new media art. It’s also different because classical concerts usually play long pieces, but this time they were playing short K-pop songs that are closer to three minutes. A typical symphony lasts 40 to 50 minutes, divided into movements that create a kind of journey, with some parts somewhat tranquil and others explosive. Compare that to K-pop, where the journey is compressed into three minutes, meaning the rhythm and overall flow tend to be extremely fast. The week before the SM Classics concert, SPO recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and after the musicians got the SM Classics scores, they said they were even harder than Mahler. (laughs) Another challenging part that had us worried was having the orchestra play along with a singer, so we were very grateful that WENDY from Red Velvet came so well-prepared.
Another difference is in the recording process, which is quite different in the K-pop world compared to classical, where the vibe in the venue is important. How was it different when it came to recording songs and filming music videos with SM Classics?
Jihee Jang: For classical music, the recording usually takes place in an actual concert hall, with the entire orchestra playing together. The conductor is more focused on balancing the overall sound than directing individual instruments, and that’s how we approached our early collaborations with SM Classics, “Red Flavor” and “End of a day.” Our work with them was our first time shooting music videos, so our musicians found it to be a really novel experience. At the beginning, we tried recording the music and filming the video simultaneously, but having to repeat the same shots over and over, and the cinematographers having to move around extremely quietly, plus the size of the frame being restricted, all made it pretty tough. So after that, we decided to do the music and video separately, and even recorded the music section by section—strings first, wind instruments next—and then edited them together. We released several music videos for the classical versions of the songs to go with the concert, and they were all directed by the same person. That director knows how to read and play sheet music, so they’d look over the full score and come in with ideas for how best to move the camera ready to go. And maybe it’s because we’ve worked together several times, but now we finish up even earlier than expected, and everyone loves that. (laughs)
A lot of songs from K-pop artists incorporate classical samples nowadays. What significance do you think there is in this collaboration between classical music and K-pop?
Jihee Jang: When SM Classics first approached us, I listened to their classical arrangements and found they sounded really fresh. After the classical version of “Red Flavor,” which was our first time working together, became a hit and started being played everywhere, I realized that collaborations like this could serve as another introduction to classical music. The partnership lowered the barrier to entry by making classical feel more relatable, and I think that’s quite meaningful. I think it’s great that even classical music still has a steady stream of new fans getting into it. Classical music isn’t just about older music like Beethoven or Mozart—there’s plenty of composers today making new classical music. It’s not a stagnant genre. It’s always on the move, which is why blending it with K-pop was a fantastic idea.
What kind of impact do you think this K-pop–classical crossover concert will have on future concerts and the direction they might take?
Jihee Jang: Working with K-pop in concert has broadened our perspective somewhat. This project was the world’s first K-pop and classical crossover concert, so everything was entirely new. I still remember worrying with the SM Classics team right up to the day before the concert whether everything would go smoothly or not. SPO has always looked beyond traditional classical for its concerts, experimenting with a variety of audience-friendly performances and more, and this latest concert feels less like an end result and more like a starting point—the first step towards something new. And what really made it so meaningful was that our music is now forever preserved as recordings. SPO doesn’t produce many recordings, given how much effort goes into them, but ever since teaming up with SM Classics, we’ve been recording around two songs a year, and it’s been really rewarding. Though K-pop and classical are distinct genres, they share in common the ability to move and captivate people. What makes music powerful is its ability to draw people in without being restricted to any particular genre. Someone who loves K-pop could develop a passion for classical music, and a classical music fan could fall in love with K-pop. I hope this place where they intersect creates plenty of opportunities for people to explore new music.
