http://www.sundaysatthree.org/html/upcoming.html

2007-2008

TICKET ORDER

FORM

NEXT CONCERT

Sunday, March 9, 2008, 3:00 P.M.

Eun Joo Chung

One of the finest pianists of her generation ~

program

Eun Joo Chung

has performed

in the world's outstanding venues
with a variety of fine orchestras
including the Moscow Radio
Symphony, the Dortmund
Philharmonic, the Turin
Philharmonic and several US
symphonies. She has appeared
at Carnegie Hall, Berlin's
Philharmonie, the Musikverein in
Vienna and Tully Hall at New
York's Lincoln Center. She has
won major competitions including

the Viotti International Competition, Schubert International Piano Competition,
Chopin Kosciuszko Competition and the World Piano Competition. Her teachers
have included Leon Fleisher, Paul Badura-Skoda and Bela Siki.

Bach-Busoni

Chaconne in D minor

Schubert

Wanderer Fantasy, Op.15

Brahms

Paganini Variations Book I, Op.35

Chopin

Andante Spianato and Grand
Polonaise in E flat major, Op.22

Piano heroine Chung plans
triumphant return

03/06/08
By Anthony Sclafani

Ronald Mutchnik recalls the first time that pianist
Eun Joo Chung performed for the Sundays at
Three concert series. Immediately after she
finished playing Ravel's "La Valse," music-lovers
leapt to their feet as one.

"They were just so bowled over by her playing,"
says the co-founder of the chamber series. On

Renowned pianist next door

By Sarah Hoover
Special to the Sun
March 7, 2008

When internationally acclaimed pianist Eun Joo
Chung steps onstage at 3 p.m. Sunday at Christ
Episcopal Church in Columbia to perform a
program of devilishly difficult music, she might
not strike you as the girl next door. But she is;
Chung has been a resident of Howard County for
six years.

Page 1 of 4

Sundays At Three Chamber Music Series

3/7/2008

http://www.sundaysatthree.org/html/upcoming.html

Sunday, March 9, a year after that memorable
Sundays at Three debut, the Columbia-based
musician will make her second appearance at the
series.

Mutchnik says he considers this Eastman School
of Music graduate one of the "finest pianists of her
generation," and expects a large audience for her
triumphant return.

"We were so happy to see such a huge crowd last
year," adds Mutchnik, who is also chair of the
artistic committee. "We know they'll come back to
hear her again. She has quite a following now."

Even a few years back, Chung was virtually
unknown by local concert-goers. The native of
South Korea had studied with Leon Fleisher and
won both the Viotti International Competition and
the Schubert International Piano Competition, but
she was never keen on "self promoting" explains
Mutchnik.

She was discovered locally when one day a
Sundays at Three board member heard from a
friend about a pianist he heard "playing all the
time" who lived in his neighborhood. The pianist
turned out to be Chung, who was asked to
perform. Her presence at Sundays at Three was a
natural, since the series likes to feature
accomplished musicians from the Baltimore-
Washington region.

And Chung is certainly accomplished. In addition
to the aforementioned competitions, she has won
the Chopin Kosciuszko Competition and the World
Piano Competition. She has performed with
esteemed ensembles like the Moscow Radio
Symphony, the Dortmund Philharmonic and the
Turin Philharmonic. And she has appeared at
Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center and Musikverein
in Vienna.

Chung also studied piano at the Peabody
Conservatory of Music and attended Vienna's
Hochschule fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst and
the Moscow Conservatory of Music.

Even with all those credits, Mutchnik didn't
anticipate the rapturous response that Chung's
playing would elicit at Sundays at Three. He
chalks it up to the way her brilliant technique is
balanced by an understated performance style.

"She's very economical with her movements. She
tosses things off so modestly but so powerfully
that you're kind of riveted that someone who is not
showing all these histrionics and obvious
theatricality still gets such a dramatic sound.

"It's rare to have somebody who plays in such a
modest way to have all of that grandness in their
sound."

"It's different here than in Vienna," she says,
where she had studied in Austria at the
Hochschule für Musik and performed at the
Musikverein. "There everyone was a musician.
Music was so much a part of everyday life."

In Columbia, her neighbors are teachers, doctors
and military personnel - and lots of young
children.

"I see little kids walking by in groups on their way
home from school. My window is open and they
can hear me practice, and they ask, 'What is she
doing?' I hope that some of them will hear the
music that I play some day, and that they will
learn about classical music."

Music shaped Chung's childhood; starting at age
4 she had a piano lesson every day in her
hometown of Seoul, South Korea. When she
entered a British school in Hong Kong speaking
almost no English, music became "the language
and the little world of my own," she says.

Faced with a difficult adjustment to a new culture,
Chung intensified her commitment to playing the
piano, "the thing I could do better than anyone."

Her discipline and perseverance paid off when,
at age 16, she won admittance to the Eastman
School of Music. From there, she was invited to
study in Vienna and afterward in Moscow.
Winning competitions and performing throughout
Europe, she has enjoyed success as a recitalist,
soloist with orchestras and chamber musician.

After a family illness drew her back to the United
States, she made a new career for herself,
completing a master's degree at Peabody
Conservatory with renowned pianist and teacher
Leon Fleisher and making her Carnegie Hall
debut in 2004.

Chung's Sunday program is a technical and
musical tour-de-force, including the Bach/Busoni
Chaconne, Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy,
Brahms' Paganini Variations Book I and Chopin's
Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise in E flat
major.

With the exception of the Chopin, the music on
the program is based on variation; a short
musical phrase is repeated and developed,
becoming more intricate and complex as the
work progresses. This musical form offers the
opportunity to display technical prowess and
artistic subtlety.

Bach's Ciaccona is a series of variations
originally written for solo violin that were
transcribed for piano by Ferrucio Busoni, a
virtuoso pianist of the late 19th century. Busoni
was a flamboyant performer and a lover of
Bach's intricate compositional style, both of

Page 2 of 4

Sundays At Three Chamber Music Series

3/7/2008

http://www.sundaysatthree.org/html/upcoming.html

Mutchnik says that it was specifically Chung's
interpretation of the Ravel piece last year that
wowed him. The work has "an orchestral quality,"
he says, and calls it "a big feat" for a pianist to
"conjure all the different sounds on one
instrument.

"The audience was just immediately won over with
it. The fact that she got through it unscathed with
no mistakes made it seem easy," says Mutchnik.

For her impending performance, Chung will tackle
four works, including Bach-Busoni's "Chaconne in
D Minor," Schubert's "Wanderer Fantasy, Op. 15,"
Brahms' "Paganini Variations, Book I, Op. 35," and
Chopin's "Andante Spianato et Grand Polonaise in
E-Flat Major."

Mutchnik calls it "a wonderful program" that
showcases "all the wonderful things that you
expect to hear from the romantic era of piano
music."

He singles out the Schubert piece, a four-
movement work performed without breaks, as a
work to take any pianist's measure. "The piece is
quite difficult," he explains. "It's based on a kind of
martial-like rhythm at the beginning, and it carries
through throughout the piece."

The Brahms work, Mutchnik says, is an adaptation
of a Paganini composition meant for solo violin. It's
"very virtuosic and difficult" on that instrument, he
says, but "even more challenging on piano."

In all, it should be an excellent showcase for
Chung, who has fast become an unsung hero on
the local music scene.

"She looks very modest and unassuming,"
Mutchnik ends, "but the sound and the variety in
her tone are on a grand scale."

Eun Joo Chung will perform as part of the
Sundays at Three concert series Sunday, March
9, 3 p.m., at the Christ Episcopal Church in
Columbia (at the intersection of Oakland Mills and
Dobbin roads). Tickets are $15 general and $10
for unaccompanied full-time students. Anyone
younger than age 18 will be admitted free when
accompanied by an adult. Call 410-992-0145 or
go to www.SundaysAtThree.org.

which can be heard in his transcription.

Schubert's Fantaisie in C major, better known as
the Wanderer Fantasy, is based on a fragment of
one of his songs ("Der Wanderer") that serves as
the basis for the rest of the work's four sections.
Composed in 1822, the Wanderer Fantasy is one
of Schubert's most virtuosic works. An
accomplished pianist himself, he ruefully
concluded that "the devil may play it!"

Pianist Clara Schumann, close friend of Brahms,
had much the same reaction to his Variations on
a Theme of Paganini of 1862, calling them "witch
variations" and impossible to play.

Each book contains an opening theme followed
by 14 variations, short but extremely demanding.
The theme is derived from a caprice written by
violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini whose style
Brahms emulates in his variations.

Chopin paired the serenely rippling Andante
spianato with its extroverted and rousing
opposite, the Grande Polonaise Brillante in E flat
major, which was originally written for piano and
orchestra..

While Sunday's program certainly requires
virtuosity, Chung hopes that the audience will
take away something more. "If the performer is
able to invite me into the music, I feel that it is a
very intimate conversation taking place as
opposed to a show or a display," she says.

It is in moments of connection between audience
and performer like these, Chung says, that she
realizes that music is "a necessity rather than an
enhancement in life, and that it is one of the
finest things life has to offer."

"I find that enjoyment doesn't come from the
easy, fast things in our culture" like the Internet,
TV, microwave food or from "pianos that play
themselves," she adds. "Real happiness comes
from having worked hard for something."

And perhaps some of her young neighbors will
hear her play the extraordinary music that is the
result of her efforts.

"Maybe I will have planted a seed," she muses.

Eun Joo Chung will appear at Christ Episcopal
Church, 6800 Oakland Mills Road in Columbia.
Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for
unaccompanied full-time students and free for
those under 18 accompanied by a paying adult.
Information: www.sundaysatthree.org.

Home

Concert Schedule

Ticketing Info

Driving Directions

News

Musicians

Area Music

Contact

Page 3 of 4

Sundays At Three Chamber Music Series

3/7/2008

http://www.sundaysatthree.org/html/upcoming.html