New York Piano Competition and it helped me to appear in more performances. I now do more than 50 performances in a year and I lead master classes once a week.
What have been your recent works? I went to Montana and accompanied Gordon Johnson and the Great Falls Symphony last Friday. I played with Yo-Yo Ma around Harvard five times. I accompanied the Boston Pops Symphony Orchestra, Indiana Orchestra and San Francisco Orchestra. I had a solo recital in Kennedy Center. I have performed in France and Germany as well.
있는 입학 컨설팅 사업도 열심히 할 생각이에요. (http://
alconsultinginfo.wix.com/home). 제 모국인 한국에서도 활동하고 싶고, 좋은 연주를 더 많이 하고, 많은 훌륭한 연주자들과도 많은 작업을 하고 싶어요.
Would you share your background/history (general/ education)? I was born in Centralia, which is located in Washington. It is a small rural city with a population of only 15,000 people. I received an Associate of Science degree from Centralia College during high school. I ended up studying economics, pre-med and piano performance at the Harvard and New England Conservatory of Music joint program. I am now living in New York studying for an Artist Diploma at Juilliard combined with touring.
When did you start to play the piano? What was your motivation? There was a little upright piano in my house. Even though there was no one who could play music, I started to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when I was 3. I had never been taught to play the piano and I didn’t know how to read music either. My mother got me a teacher after she witnessed that. I learned pop and jazz until I was 7, when I started to learn classical music with Nancy Adsit who is a significant teacher.
How did you start your career as a professional piano player? It was not an instant moment. I won many competitions and received opportunities to accompany orchestras as a result. When I was 8, I accompanied an orchestra for the first time. These opportunities increased in number and I began to perform more as a pianist. I had never been in New York until I was 16. In 2006, I went there and won the Eastman Piano Competition and the 2006 Stecher and Horowitz Foundation’s
26 PEOPLE April 2013
I know that your favorite musician is Yo-Yo Ma, How was it to collaborate with him? Even though he is a superstar, he is very kind. He was humble enough so that I wouldn’t notice he was Yo-Yo Ma if somebody didn’t say it. We played Gershwin, Shostakovich, Ravel, a movie soundtrack and even a tango together. It was a very fun and great experience.
Who is your favorite composer to perform? How do you play music written by different composers differently? I like Beethoven and Chopin the most. I think Beethoven is stubborn, painful and passionate. I express more of my emotion when I play Chopin, because I think Chopin is romantic and has more freedom.
What do you think is the most important thing as a pianist? Emotion. As a pianist, my duty is not being a robot that plays notes well, but being an artist who transmits emotion to the audience. After a performance, if some of the audience cry or say they were touched, I feel that I have done my job well on the day.
You are a successful pianist despite your young age, what do you think are the things that made it possible? It’s most important to meet good mentors. Without Nancy Adsit or Hwa Kyung Byun at the New England Conservatory, I wouldn’t be here. Hard work is also needed, but luck and talent are very important.
Why did you study pre-med and economics at Harvard even though you were successful as pianist? Since I was young, I have been worried because my family was not rich. I liked music but I was not a fortunate child who could do music exclusively. One of the reasons was that my father was sick and I worried that I couldn’t work enough as a musician. Accordingly, I researched joint programs and found the Harvard and New England Conservatory joint program. I received full scholarships, and could finish the 6-year program in 5 years, so I came to Boston for the program.
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