This is the eighth in a series of interviews with the next generation of classical musicians ― ED
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
The color purple (no, not the Alice Walker novel) is the combination of two polar opposites, red and blue. The amethyst shade best describes the musicality of Korean-British violinist Kym Min-jin. To add to the 29-year-old's own words, perhaps purple personifies her bicultural identity as well.
``When I play Sarasate, I think of it as red,'' she told The Korea Times. After her critically acclaimed recording of a fiery ``Carmen Fantasie'' with the London Symphony Orchestra, Kym recently showed a different musical spectrum in ``Min Jin Kym: Beethoven'' (Sony Classical).
``Every nuance Beethoven writes reflects something you feel in life. There's a lot of suffering but it's not as simple as that. Inside it all you find tremendous peace and serenity,'' she said. In her recording, Kym's renditions of Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Sonata No. 7 remind you of a deep ocean blue.
Red and blue, fire and ice, and Korean and English ― Kym is purple. She represents both the British branch of the Korean Diaspora and the Korean strand of the multicultural British social fabric.
``When I'm in England I feel very Korean but in Korea I feel very English,'' said the very cheerful and animate woman. Her use of Korean words and active hand gestures occasionally interrupted her rhythmic British speech. ``It's kind of indefinable. If there's a place in the world for Korean-English or `Konglish' that's where I'd belong,'' she laughed.
``There is a universal language of music we (musicians) all understand,'' she said. ``Music in itself is like a culture. I feel that with any language ― English or Korean or German ― what shapes the personality of the country is the language.
``Music is such a global thing ― it has a vocabulary of all the languages put together. It can express things you cannot express in the country language that you speak,'' said the bilingual, bicultural artist.
Born in Seoul, Kym moved to London at the age of three. One of the most promising violinists to emerge from the United Kingdom in recent years, the dual citizenship holder marks many firsts for both countries.
After playing the violin for only a year, she became the first seven-year-old ― the youngest ever ― to enter the Purcell School of Music in London. At 11, she appeared on worldwide television, winning first prize at the Premier Mozart International Competition in Italy.
``It felt right,'' Kym said about first laying hands on the instrument. Her older sister Min-jung is also an accomplished musician, a concert pianist. ``My sister would get `jeotgarak' (chopstick) and pretend to conduct while I would pretend to play my paper cut-out violin,'' she said. A play act eventually became a full-fledged career ― ``but I still feel like it's playtime,'' she laughed.
At 13, the violinist made her international debut with the Berlin Symphony and was soon playing in other parts of Europe. Then at 15 years of age, she became the youngest student ever to win a Foundation Scholarship at the Royal College of Music.