Youn Shim-deok

Youn Shim-deok (also written as Yoon or Yun and Sim-dok or Shimdok) (1897-1926) was the first woman soprano to achieve fame throughout Korea.

Life and career

Born in Pyongyang in 1897, she studied at the Pyongyang Girls' Middle and High Schools, and graduated from Kyongsong Women's Teaching College in Seoul in 1914. After graduation she became a primary school teacher in Wonju.

She left for Japan where she studied music at Tokyo Music School. It was there that she met and fell in love with an English literature and drama student, Woojin Kim. However, Kim was married and had a wife and children at his home in Mokpo.

They set off back for Korea on a passenger ship but jumped from the ship into the ocean and were drowned.

Her most famous recording, recorded in Osaka by the Japanese Nitto recording company, and accompanied by her sister on the piano, is "Saui ch'anmi/In Praise of Death" (or a Psalm of Death) which is set to the tune of "The Waves of the Danube" by Ion Ivanovici. This was released in Korea in 1926 and is often regarded as the first "popular" Korean song.

Two films have been made of her story. The first a 1969 film entitled Yoon Shim-deok (윤심덕) directed by Han Hyeon-Cheol and starring Moon Hee. The second was "Death Song"(사의 찬미) named after Yoon's most famous song, and made in 1991. It was directed by Kim Ho-seon, for which he won the 1992 Grand Bell Award for best director. Chang Mi-hee starred as Youn, and the film retells the story of the lovers' time in Japan and their death.

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