Pianist Son Yeol-eum has been appointed Great Mountains Music Festival & School’s new artistic director.

Son is the fourth artistic director of the music festival, following founder and first artistic director Kang Hyo and co-directors Chung Myung-wha and Chung Kyung-wha, who resigned from their posts in January.

In the last year Son reportedly expressed the hope that GMMFS, originally envisioned to promote the PyeongChang Olympics, would continue on, like the Winter International Arts Festival in Sochi, which have outlived the games.

Son, who performed at GMMFS in 2011, took up the festival‘s deputy artistic director post in June 2016.

GMMFS was launched in 2004 alongside the nation’s bid to host the Olympics, but it remained unclear if the music festival would continue after the Winter Games concluded. Concerns were recently exacerbated, as the previous co-directors in January announced their resignations.

Festival organizers said the lineup of the summer edition of GMMFS would be announced in mid-April.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)