Busan festival gathers prodigies and the pros

The second annual Busan Music Festival beginning next Wednesday will bring internationally renowned soloists and winners of prestigious musical competitions together. The festival continues until Jan. 21 at Busan Cultural Center and the Grand Hotel Haeundae Busan.
Like last year, renowned violist Choi En-sik and his wife and pianist Paik Hae-sun are again musical director and assistant musical director for the festival. Some of the returning musicians include violinist Kim Soo-vin, cellists Laurence Lesser, Fred Sherry and violist Cho En-sik and pianist Paik Hae-sun.
The seven-day inaugural festival last year consisted entirely of chamber music performances. However, this year’s event has a more diverse program including a piano trio, a piano solo, a violin concerto and a triple concerto.
The event also features a rising star series with 16-year-old pianist Kim Da-sol, winner of the 3rd Nagoya International Music Competition in August 2005, a teaching seminar by guest performers from Jan. 11 to 22, and a dinner concert on Jan. 21.
New guest performers this year are pianists Robert Macdonald and Olivier Gardon; violinists Ian Swensen, Scott Saint John and Baek Ju-young; violist Martha Katz; cellists Chung Myung-wha, and flutist Yoon Hye-ri.
Macdonald, currently a professor at The Juilliard School, has taken part in many major music festivals, while Swensen, the head of the String Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music since 1990, has received the top prize in both the International Violin Competition and the Chamber Music Competition. His string quartet also won the Coleman and Fischoff competitions.
Lesser, a top-prize winner in the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and a participant in the historic Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts and recordings, has been a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the New Japan Philharmonic.
Violist Katz was a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Cleveland Quartet, for which she has played for 12 years.

by Limb Jae-un

Tickets are 20,000 won for all events, except for the 11-day teaching seminar, which is 1,900,000 won, and the dinner concert, which is 150,000 won. For schedule and ticket info, visit www.busanmusicfestival.com or call ticketlink at 1588-7890 or the festival office at 051-747-1536.