You may have noticed, if you were watching, that gold medal laureate Clara-Jumi Kang appeared to be tears Friday night after her performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis Finals.
Actually, the real tears came the day before.
“I cried for 40 minutes the day before I played the Beethoven,” she said. For the competition, Clara-Jumi played on a 1774 Guadagnini from Turin, on loan from the Kumho Foundation in Korea. The fiddle was not always an easy partner, especially for the Beethoven Violin Concerto. (Listen to her Final round here.)
The Guad has a very bright sound, and “sometimes it has a personality I can’t control.” By contrast, her normal violin has a darker sound. “I was used to that phrasing” that comes out of a darker violin, and “somehow nothing seemed to work.”
Clara-Jumi, 23, has perfect pitch, and she was accustomed to a 443-hertz “A” in Korea, or a 444 in Europe. The Indianapolis Symphony used a 440 “A” – much lower. “I was used to the higher sound,” she said. Putting all those things together, everything felt out of her control.
But then she came to a profound realization: “I found myself thinking that Beethoven is much too great for me to control it,” Clara-Jumi said. “It’s from above this earth, and I should just play it, just worship it as something from above. That is what I focused on all evening.”
“I was so into the music,” she said of her performance of the Beethoven at the Finals. “I am blessed to have played the Beethoven with orchestra eight times – nobody wants to play the Beethoven with you when you are 23.
“(On Friday) I was playing it like I was worshipping it – that’s why, after the performance, I had tears running,” she said. They came from her deep emotion for the Beethoven and from her sadness at the piece coming to an end, the competition coming to an end. “It wasn’t because I was upset or because I didn’t like my playing.
https://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20109/11680/
“…supremely sophisticated, sparklingly balanced, intensely beautifully toned, meticulous and honest”
KölnerStadt-Anzeiger 5 June 2018
An artist of impeccable elegance and poise, Clara-Jumi Kang has carved an international career performing with the leading orchestras and conductors across Asia and Europe. Winner of the 2010 Indianapolis International Violin Competition, Kang’s other accolades include 1st prizes at the Seoul Violin Competition (2009) and the Sendai Violin Competition (2010).
Having made her concerto debut at the age of five with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Kang has since performed with leading European orchestras including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Belgique and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
In the USA she has performed with orchestras including the Atlanta, New Jersey, Indianapolis and Santa Fe Symphony Orchestras, whilst elsewhere highlights have included appearances with the Mariinsky Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, NCPA Beijing Orchestra, Macao Philharmonic and the Taipei Symphony. A prominent figure in Korea, Clara-Jumi Kang has performed withall ofthe major Korean orchestras and in 2012 was selected as one of the top 100 “Most promising and influential people of Korea” by major Korean newspaper Dong-A Times. She returns annually to Korea for tours and was awarded the 2012 Daewon Music Award for her outstanding international achievements, as well as being names Kumho Musician of the Year in 2015.
She has collaborated with eminent conductors including Valery Gergiev, Lionel Briguier, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Andrey Boreyko, Christoph Poppen, Vladimir Spivakov, Yuri Temirkanov, Gidon Kremer, Gilbert Varga, LüJia, Myun-Whun Chung, Heinz Holliger and Kazuki Yamada.
Clara-Jumi Kang’s first solo album entitled “Modern Solo” was released on Deccain 2011 and featured works including Schubert’s ErlKönig and Ysaÿe Solo Sonatas. Her second recording for the label of Brahms and Schumann Violin Sonatas with pianist Yeol-Eum Son was released in 2016.
A devoted chamber musician, Kang is a regular visitor to festivals across Asia and Europe, with recent highlights including the Pyeongchang, Hong Kong, Ishikawa and Marvao Chamber Music Festivals. She is also a member of the Berlin Spectrum Concerts series and has collaborated with artists including Boris Berezovsky, Boris Brovtsyn, Eldar Nebolsin, Gidon Kremer, Guy Braunstein, Julian Rachlin, Maxim Rysanov, Misha Maisky, Sunwook Kim, Vadim Repin and Yeol Eum Son.
European concerto highlights of the 2018/19 season include engagements with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León/Petrenko, Musikkollegium Winterthur/ D. Jurowski, Nordic Chamber Orchestra/Ollikainen, Rheinische Philharmonie/Walker, Deutsche Radio Philharmonic/Delamboye, Dalasinfoniettan/Blendulf, Moscow Soloists/ Bashmet and Concerto Budapest/ Keller. Further afield, she returns to Japan for performances with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra/Koizumi, whilst engagements in China take her to the Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra/Sinaisky and the Shenzen Symphony Orchestra. Recital tours take Kang to Italy and Korea in collaboration with pianists Sunwook Kim and Alessio Bax whilst chamber music performances include the Spectrum Concerts series at the Berlin Philharmonie and Pyeongchang Chamber Music Festival.
Born in Germany to a musical family, Clara-Jumi Kang took up the violin at the age of three and a year later enrolled as the youngest ever student at the Mannheim Musikhochschuhle. She went on to study with ZakharBron at the Lübeck Musikhochschule and at the age of seven was awarded a full scholarship to the Julliard School to study with Dorothy Delay. She took her Bachelor and Masters degrees at the Korean National University of Arts under Nam-Yun Kim before completing her studies at the Munich Musikhochschule with Christoph Poppen.
Clara-Jumi Kang currently plays the 1708 “Ex-Strauss” Stradivarius, generously on loan to her from the Samsung Cultural Foundation Korea. http://clarajumikang.com/biography/?ckattempt=3