By Dong Sun-hwa Having to be creative can seem like torture for some people, but for American musical and popular song composer Frank Wildhorn, it is pure joy. “I am a joyful warrior,” says Wildhorn. “I wake up every morning feeling like I am the luckiest guy in the world, who can make music with people I love and see how it touches their lives. “The river of creativity is still flowing pretty well in my life, and songwriting is the most joyful thing for me. At the same time, I have to be a warrior because it costs a lot to produce a theatrical show and so many people’s lives are affected by what I do.” This is the video Frank Wildhorn composer of Jekyll and Hyde came across and decided to cast Taehyung as Jekyll in his musical pic.twitter.com/5FxCQ1WD1s — TTP (@thetaeprint) June 26, 2022 His 1990 musical, Jekyll & Hyde , has been seen by 1.5 million people since its Korea premiere in 2004. This is the Moment , a number from the musical, has been performed in Korean by a number of A-list musical actors and K-pop stars, such as V of boy band BTS . “I recently saw an Instagram video featuring V singing This is the Moment and I loved it,” says Wildhorn. “I want to tell V that if he wants to play Jekyll & Hyde , we got it. I would love to make music with him.” Harvard student on launching her Korean princess musical on TikTok This is the Moment is one of numerous creations by Wildhorn, a prolific composer dubbed the most loved musical composer in Korea. He currently has four shows – Jekyll & Hyde , Death Note , The Man Who Laughs and Mata Hari – running in Seoul, each of them garnering rave reviews for the quality of their music. “This is a crazy time,” Wildhorn says. “It seems there is an incredible romantic connection between my music and the Korean audience. There have been wonderful collaborations between I and them over the past few years. “I call it a collaboration because I don’t do a show for the audience, I do it with the audience. I can always feel different energy from them every night.” There might be various reasons for why people react so strongly to Wildhorn’s songs, but he believes his “common touch” makes him stand out the most. “I am an audience member, not a snobby guy from New York,” he says. “I feel like I have a common touch with people and I can put myself in their place. I was a self-taught musician. I don’t try to show people how clever I am, I just want to move them and touch their hearts.” Wildhorn, who has no formal music education, began his musical journey as a soul jazz piano player. He later stumbled into pop music and wrote a series of hits, such as Whitney Houston ’s Where Do Broken Hearts Go (1988) that topped Billboard’s singles chart. He fell into theatrical shows by chance. Although Wildhorn had not planned on exploring these genres at first, his pursuit of eclectic music has led him to where he is today. “I used to work at a publisher and made music for different stars every day,” the composer recalls. “I had to create songs of all genres – including R&B – while I was at a publisher, which later turned out to be the best training school anyone can go to. “When I first set foot into the theatrical world, some people were quite snobby and they called me a ‘pop guy’, using the word ‘pop’ as a bad thing.” Today, Wildhorn is internationally acclaimed for his genre-busting style, which has helped him when his motivation ebbs. “I sometimes get into a slump as I do so many things at the same time, but I don’t stay in a slump for very long because I can always switch to another genre if I feel like I am hitting the wall,” he says. He believes the future of the Korean musical scene is “incredibly bright”, not only because of talented actors like his “Korean brother” Kim Jun-su and actress Ok Joo-hyun (Julia Ok), but also because of his young audience in South Korea. “Korea has the youngest audience I have seen in the world,” he says. “It looks like watching a musical is a date night thing for boys and girls to do – but it is more heavily populated by women who want to see their favourite stars on stage.” Read the full story at The Korea Times