Artists
- May 31, 2023
- Posted by: admin
- Category:
Artists
- May 31, 2023
- Posted by: admin
- Category:
Violin
Lauded as one of the most prominent violinists of today, Ju-Young Baek enjoys an extensive international career. Many of world’s important venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center in New York, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Suntory Hall in Tokyo, have presented her in recitals as well as a soloist, with the NHK Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, China National Orchestra, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Singapore Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, KBS Symphony Orchestra among others. Also active as a chamber musician, Ms. Baek has performed at the festivals of Marlboro, Ravinia, Aspen, Great Mountains, Naantali, Bridgehampton, as well as Casals Festival in France, Beethoven Festival in Poland and YCA CHANEL Festival in Tokyo. She was the leader of the Sejong Soloists, and one of the founding members of Chamber Music Society of Kumho Art Hall, and now leads ensemble OPUS, a chamber music ensemble based in Seoul.
Winner of numerous prizes of prestigious international competitions, Ms. Baek is a laureate of Indianapolis, Paganini, Sibelius, Long-Thibaud, and Queen Elisabeth International Competitions, to name a few. Her career was launched after winning 1st prize at YCA Auditions in New York City and the Astral Artists of Philadelphia. Her orchestra solo debut at Lincoln Center with New York Chamber Orchestra was highly praised by Kurt Masur, then Music Director of New York Philharmonic.
In 2007, Ju-Young Baek gave a record-making performance in which all 12 of Bach and Ysaye solo violin works were performed in one day.
Violinist Ju-Young Baek released her first CD in Japan with Brahms and Bruch concerti to critical acclaim, followed by another solo violin repertoire album consisted of Bartok, Bach, Isang Yun, Schnittke, also published in Japan. Her recording of Penderecki and Szymanovski violin concerti with Royal Philharmonic was released in London, which received rave reviews. In 2020, in celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Ju-Young released a complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas recording, under Sony Label.
Ms. Baek holds degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, and Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris. She was appointed as the youngest violin professor in 2005 at the Seoul National University, which made national headlines in Korea.
Korean violinist, Rami Yoo, is a graduate of Peabody Conservatory of Music (Master of Music), and Yonsei University. She performed as the member of Korean Symphony Orchestra, Festival Orchestra of Seoul Arts Center, and KT Chamber Orchestra. Ms.Yoo also performed in numerous solo recitals including at the Seoul Arts Center, Youngsan Art Hall, Sejong Chamber Hall, and LA Korea Center. She participated and performed in the Asia-Pacific United Orchestra Europe tour in 2012 and Vienna Music festival.
Ms. Yoo was a violin faculty at the Yonsei University, Yewon School of music and Seoul Arts Center Music Academy for young artists in Korea.
Korean violinist Jooha Choi is currently a junior student at Seoul National University. She attended Yewon School from 2015 to 2018, where she graduated as valedictorian. She then attended Seoul Art High School from 2018 to 2021 with outstanding achievements and graduated as valedictorian.
Jooha has participated in several competitions, including the Kumho young artist concert, the 193rd Concert of Seongnam Philharmonic Orchestra. She won top prizes in many local and international competitions, including the 62nd Dong-A Music Competition 1st prize & Woogum prize, and the HKGNA International Music Competition 2nd prize, the 35th Busan Music Concour 1st prize, the Ewha & Kyunghyang Concour 1st prize, and the Seoul Art High School Concour (The string section) 1st prize.
Jooha’s talent has also been recognized internationally. She was awarded the Chairman of Jury Award and Espoir prize at the Osaka International Music Competition for Ensemble. She also participated in the 8th World Peace Music Festival in Dubai.
Violinist Yoonseo Lee won 1st prize at the Ihwa Kyunghyang Competition, KCO National Music Competition, and Boys Hankook Ilbo Competition, to name a few. She showed her outstanding talent early by winning a prestigious competition in Korea and entering Yewon School at the top of her class.
Yoonseo was selected for the Kumho Gifted and Talented Concert and had a recital, and later became a rising star at the Daegwanryeong International Music Festival. She was invited to perform in many concerts, including concerts and special concerts invited by the Queen of Belgium. Performed with leading orchestras such as RBC & Seoul Arts High School Chamber Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra. Yoonseo won the 2nd prize at the 2021 HKGNA International Music Competition in Hong Kong.
As one of the promising players of the next generation of violin in Korea, Yoonseo studied with Kim Nam-yoon and Ju Young Baek, and graduated from Seoul Arts High School.
Currently, she is studying at the College of Music at Seoul National University.
Hyein Koo graduated Yewon school, Seoul Arts High School with top prize, Seoul National University and she will enter into Juilliard School this fall. She showed her talent she was 12 years old.
She won the award in The Hankook-ilbo Music Competition, TBC, CBS, Korea Herald, Strad Music Competition, and HKGNA International Music Competition. Also, she was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and participated in Dubai Music Festival.
When she was 16 years old, she performed chamber music, orchestra, and solo with Colburn School in LA, USA. Furthermore, when she was 21 years old, she receive a full scholarship and participated in Aspen Music Festival and School. Since then, she has been performing various activities such as Chunchu debut stage, young musician concert, SNU string quartet concert, and with Gyeong-buk orchestra.
Yijie Ding was born and raised in Foshan City, Guangdong province, China. She started learning the violin at 6 and conquered the difficulty of being blind since she was born. Other than learning the violin, she also had many interests as a kid, including playing the piano, singing, and attempted some challenging sports.
As the first blind violin student studying at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, majoring in violin, she studies with Professor Michael Ma. Prior to this, she studied with Ms. Kaiyi Ma in Guangzhou.
In 2017, since she was not the full-time student of the Academy yet, she had to travel for more than 10 hours to Hong Kong to have a violin lesson every week. The following year, she was admitted to the Academy as a bachelor degree student with full scholarship.
She is currently in the 1st year of her master degree in APA. She is a very active student at school, frequently taking part in different solo and chamber performances. As well as working with different orchestra in Hong Kong as a soloist. In 2019, she was invited by the Hong Kong Art Festival to play in the recital, which was her very first solo recital in Hong Kong. During her studies, she always participates in masterclasses, solo performances, and music festivals, she was privileged enough to have performed in Japan, Austria and in different cities of Germany as a solo performer. She has successful collaborations with the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of Hong Kong and the True Colors Symphony.
In 2021, she won the 2nd prize of the young artist section and the special jury prize in HKGNA International Music Competition. She was also the winner of the VSA International Young Soloist Competition. The winner of the 19th gold concert in 2022.
Piano
Hong Kong-born pianist Anson Wong graduated from the Diocesan Boys’ School and had been a student at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) since nine, majoring in piano, bassoon and composition. He is now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in piano at the HKAPA with Prof. Gabriel Kwok, with a full scholarship from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Scholarships.
He has won numerous prizes in the annual Hong Kong School Music Festivals, the Silver prize of the 17th Chopin International Piano Competition in Asia (Tokyo), the Gold Prize Award and two special jury prizes in the Ishikawa International Piano Competition, and the HKGNA International Music Competition 2021 Grand Prize. He had performed in various festivals including the 6th Shenzhen Piano Music Festival in 2018, the Gala Concert of the Ishikawa International Piano Competition in Tokyo, the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg, and the International Summer Academy by the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Reichenau an der Rax. He had also been coached by Boris Berman, Christopher Elton, Robert Levin, Angela Cheng, Graham Scott, Arnulf von Arnim, Vanessa Latarche, Ronan O’hora, Dina Parakhina, and Andreas Frölich. He had collaborated with numerous orchestras including the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pan Asia Symphony Orchestra and the Academy Symphony Orchestra of the HKAPA. In 2021, he was invited to perform alongside distinguished teachers and colleagues in the ‘Beethoven 32’ Project organised jointly by the RTHK and the HKAPA, and in 2022, he performed the Beethoven Choral Fantasy with the Academy Symphony Orchestra of the HKAPA in the 25th Anniversary Celebration Concert of the HKSAR, which both were recorded and broadcasted on the RTHK. He made his debut in the same year with the HKGNA in the ‘Celebration of Love & Joy’ concert and HKGNA Music Festival 2022 ‘Music on the Harbourfront’, which was broadcasted on tvN Asia in nine different countries. He was chosen as a scholar under the Sir Elton John Global Exchange Programme of the Royal Academy of Music in 2023.
Apart from being an able pianist, he is also an accomplished composer. He has studied composition at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts since 2013 with Ms. Poly Ng. In 2017, he won the first prize of the 69th Hong Kong School Music Festival Open class Composition Category with the piece ‘The 5 Elements’. In 2018, he was awarded the Gold standard composition winner in the notation category of the TI:ME Electronic Music Composition Contest in the United States with his composition ‘D’Urban’. His abilities in composition is also showcased in his participation in the 2010, 2014 and 2016 Yamaha Asia Pacific Electone Festival held in Taiwan, Malaysia and Macau respectively, in which he composed and performed his compositions himself. In the 2016 season, he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Senior Section, championing in improvisation, performance and composition.
An internationally acclaimed pianist, educator and ambassador for the arts, Michelle Kim has performed in concert halls in recital and as soloist with numerous international orchestras throughout the world including performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and the Sejong Cultural Center to name a few.
In 2009, Michelle founded Hong Kong Generation Next Arts (HKGNA), a Hong Kong youth charity dedicated to fostering music excellence, community and inspiration in Hong Kong and changing young lives through music. Since establishing HKGNA, she has performed numerous concerts to raise money for HK Charities including performances at the HK Cultural Centre and Asia World Expo with renowned evangelist and speaker, Nick Vujicic. In 2013, Michelle was featured as one of the “Inspiring Women of Hong Kong” in the October Anniversary Issue of Marie Claire. She was also invited to speak at TEDx Wanchai and shared a talk “Finding the True Gift of Music.” In 2014, she was invited by the Humanitarian Affairs, UK, to speak at the 6th University Scholars Leadership Symposium to student leaders representing 69 different countries. Recently, Ms. Kim received the 2020 Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award from the South Korean Government for her dedication and contribution to Korean classical music abroad and enhancement of the reputation of Korea.
Born in Seoul, Michelle gave her orchestral debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at age ten. She graduated from The Juilliard School earning both her Bachelors and Masters of Music. She was also recipient of the prestigious Arthur Rubinstein Award and garnered top prizes in numerous international competitions. Ms. Kim makes her home in Hong Kong with her husband Thomas and son Max.