Gregor Tassie’s interview with pianist Yeol Eum Son
Music lovers in Scotland will be capable of get pleasure from a uncommon festive musical event when the good younger Korean pianist performs Mozart’s glowing Concerto No.27 in B flat. She isn’t solely magnificent on the keyboard, but in addition an artist of the very best order. In musical phrases, Yeol Eum shares Shakespeare’s truism, ‘To thine own self be true’, reflecting ‘As an artist, I want to become more adventurous, free and daring but, at the same time, remain curious and “up-to-date”.’ Her selection of repertoire, which spans the works of Bach and Mozart to these of Shchedrin and Kapustin, is guided mainly by the standard and depth of the music.
In December Yeol Eum Son makes her debut with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra following a busy few months touring Australia and New Zealand taking part in in solo recitals, chamber and orchestral concert events. This isn’t her first go to to Scotland as she toured with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in February 2020 earlier than the worldwide pandemic. On that afternoon, she performed the Ravel Concerto for Left Hand, from my evaluation of that afternoon. ‘She is a diminutive and fragile figure on stage, yet at the keyboard, she has an imposing authority. […] She has a brilliant, crystal-clear articulation, typical of which was her bringing out the nimbly pronounced sardonic idea – backed by marvellously orchestral playing, yet again helped by splendid playing from the wind section, with a burnished hue from the brass’. A mark of her persona was the encore she gave that afternoon; Moniuszko’s Waltz in E main, wherein we may see her opening up her musicality!
In February, this yr, Yeol Eum returned for one more concerto efficiency, on this event with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Salonen’s Piano Concerto, one other trace of her dedication to exploring trendy music and the uncared for corners of classical and romantic music. In Salonen’s piece, she confirmed that she will be able to mix sturdy highly effective piano writing with beautiful dexterity. In current seasons, Yeol Eum has championed lesser-known music in her recitals most notably of Kapustin, Alkan, Lekeu, Galuppi and Pärt.
Yoel Eum was born in Wonju, South Korea in 1986, and started learning the piano on the age of three-and-a-half. She made her recital debut within the Kumho Prodigy Concert Series in July 1998. She studied with Cheng-Zong Yin, one in all China’s most outstanding pianists, and later continued her research with pianist Dae Jin Kim when she was 12. At age 16, she entered the Korea National University of Arts graduating with a level in piano research. In 1997, she was among the many prize winners on the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians and received the Oberlin International Piano Competition two years later. Yeol Eum continued her research with Professor Arie Vardi on the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.
Her worldwide profession started to take off when Yeol Eum received second prize and the Best Chamber Music Performance on the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition. Her promise was underlined on the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, the place she received the Silver Medal (when Daniil Trifonov received the Gold Medal) and awarded the coveted Best Chamber Concerto Performance and Best Performance of the Commissioned Work. The YouTube video of her efficiency of KV.467 on the International Tchaikovsky Competition has been seen virtually 23 million instances, which is taken into account a document determine for any dwell Mozart work on the platform.
The breadth of her pursuits inside and past music knowledgeable the month-to-month column she contributed for six years to one in all South Korea’s main newspapers, and the book-length anthology of her journalism offered out inside two days of its publication. Yeol Eum refuses to impose limits on her inventive freedom and stays decided to discover new inventive territory.
Poetic magnificence, an innate feeling for expressive nuance and the ability to undertaking boldly dramatic contrasts are among the many arresting attributes of Yeol Eum Son’s pianism. Her refined artistry rises from breath-taking technical management and a profound empathy for the emotional mood of the works inside her strikingly vast repertoire. She is pushed above all by a pure curiosity to discover a mess of musical genres and kinds and the will to disclose what she describes because the ‘pure essence’ of all the things she performs.
Yeol Eum has received vital plaudits for the profound insights and intelligence of her interpretations. Her improvement as an all-round artist has been gained from collaborations with conductors as various as Lorin Maazel, Dmitri Kitajenko, Valery Gergiev, Andrew Manze, Jaime Martin, Jun Märkl, Roberto González-Monjas, Joana Carneiro, Gergely Madaras and Omer Meir Welber. She has explored recent artistic prospects since her appointment in 2018 as Artistic Director of Music in PyeongChang and as a daily chamber music associate with, amongst others, the violinist Svetlin Roussev and the Modigliani Quartet.
Yeol Eum opened her 2022-23 season in Sydney with a recital that included works by Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Pärt and Alkan alongside Franck, Rachmaninov and Kapustin. Other season highlights embody a tour of the United States that includes Janáček’s Piano Sonata 1.X.1905, ‘From the Street’, Kapustin’s Piano Sonata No.2, The Wizard of Oz Fantasy by William Hirtz and Guido Agosti’s transcription of Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite, and a recital of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas Nos.1-3 supplied along with Kapustin’s Piano Sonata No.4 and Piano Sonata No.2 at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw.
In addition to her all-Mozart album for Onyx (2018), Yeol Eum’s discography contains Modern Times, an album of works by Berg, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ravel (Decca, 2016), a recording of Schumann’s Fantasy in C, Kreisleriana and Arabesque (Onyx, 2020) and a disc dedicated to Nikolai Kapustin’s Eight Concert Etudes, Piano Sonata No.2 and different consultant compositions (Onyx, 2021).
Yeol Eum returned from Australia to Europe in September 2022 to launch her time period as Artist-in-Residence with the Residentie Orkest with Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G main. The nine-concert residency continues all through the season with performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and I Got Rhythm, Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No.2 and Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. During her current tour of New Zealand, Yeol Eum Son discovered the time to speak to me about her profession.
GT: Do you play music by Korean composers? The music of composers comparable to Isang Yun and Unsuk Chin have develop into extra fashionable in recent times.
YES: I play their items, I really like them, and I want to uncover extra of their music, significantly of the youthful era, [those who are] like me, of my very own era, however I hope to play far more sooner or later.
GT: Who are your most vital lecturers, and do you be in contact with them?
YES: Well, amongst my lecturers was Arie Vardi in Hannover in Germany, and I’d say that he’s a very powerful trainer and the largest affect in my musical life to date, and I’ve realized a lot from him, and I take into account him a buddy and I play for him and ask him for recommendation [and about] what [pieces] and the way I ought to play and so forth, so I feel it’s nice to remain near the mentor, not solely as a mentor however as a trainer as effectively.
GT: Are there any favorite musicians that you simply like listening to? I take into account pianists or conductors.
YES: There are too many musicians, pianists and singers and cellists [to mention], and plenty of of them are from the previous instances, I [can] point out a number of names like Lilli Krauss, and Alicia de Larrocha, or individuals like Alexis Weissenberg who’s my very favorite pianist, additionally I like Shura Cherkassky, I like taking part in these previous data primarily, I really like listening to them.
GT: Is it vital that Lilli Kraus and Alicia de Larrocha are girls, and do their careers encourage you?
YES: I don’t know, I feel it’s a coincidence that they’re girls, I simply love their taking part in and their lives had been additionally a terrific inspiration, I personally don’t have any desire whether or not they’re male or feminine pianists or something like this, clearly I like what they do.
GT: You performed in Edinburgh a number of years in the past earlier than the pandemic, did you might have an opportunity to see town and Scotland?
YES: Actually, I feel it was in February 2020 in the beginning occurred [for the outbreak of the pandemic] and my dad joined me for this live performance, and he got here all the best way from Korea. We simply walked round and loved the sights of this stunning metropolis, however the climate was raining, and went to the lodge and had some Scotch which I loved. I had a pleasant time, and I keep in mind that this was one of many final concert events in the beginning shut down, I keep in mind these moments and want to see extra subsequent time.
GT: Because you reside in South Korea, how do you deal with the lengthy distances in travelling, and are there any favorite international locations you want to go to?
YES: I nonetheless have my place in Germany, so I spend a while between my concert events in Europe, so I spend extra time in Europe, so I’m there extra usually, and travelling is difficult after the pandemic however now it’s a lot better it not at all times nice to be on the airplane on a regular basis, however I look on the intense aspect. I get pleasure from taking part in for various audiences and going to totally different locations. It’s exhausting to inform, I at all times like taking part in for European audiences, however truly I’m in New Zealand now, and this summer season I used to be in Australia for the primary time and had 5 – 6 concert events there and beloved all of them a lot, I feel it’s attention-grabbing to see a brand new place and uncover one thing which I didn’t know earlier than.
GT: What composers or musical works are you planning for the subsequent season?
YES: Obviously it’s in my curiosity to seek out one thing new, new names, I imply composers like Nikolai Kapustin who I began taking part in, and others like him, no one knew about him so all over the place I am going to, individuals query me about him, and I really feel blissful taking part in his music to individuals who didn’t know his title earlier than, so I really like to consider new repertoire, to seek out some new names that I didn’t know earlier than.
GT: How do deal with being away from your property and household if you end up touring around the globe?
YES: Well, truly now I’m making an attempt to have extra non-public time, time without work with my household, and I do know nothing is extra vital than having this connection, time with family members and now after the pandemic I’m making an attempt to make time, I’ll attempt in February and March to have some free time, I feel it’s vital to have this steadiness. After the pandemic I used to be working fairly exhausting and was actually on the go daily so I’ll now attempt to get pleasure from life far more.
GT: Are you making new recordings?
YES: I truly made recordings of the entire sonatas of Mozart within the first six months of this yr and this launch can be fairly quickly within the first months of subsequent yr and I’ve made another recordings just like the Ligeti Piano Concerto for the a hundredth anniversary subsequent yr and that may come out subsequent yr too, and I’ve additionally executed the Ravel Concerto which can come out then as effectively, however for me a very powerful is the Mozart piano sonatas.
GT: What pursuits do you might have other than music?
YES: I’ve favored studying books from my earliest years, I even have developed an curiosity within the advantageous arts, in addition to historical past, extra just lately up to date historical past.
GT: Well, thanks very a lot for locating the time to speak to me, and I feel everyone seems to be trying very a lot to listening to you taking part in with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra quickly.
Gregor Tassie
Yeol Eum Son performs the Mozart Piano Concerto No.27 in B flat, KV.595 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on the Usher Hall, Edinburgh on 15 December, and on the City Halls, Glasgow on 16 December. Andrew Manze is the conductor on this programme which incorporates Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra and Dvořák’s Symphony No.7 in D minor.