Do Je-hae edits news stories as part of the AI team.
Violinist-violist shares joy of chamber music
By Do Je-hae
By Do Je-hae
Lee Yu-ra is doing something rare among world-class violinists of Korean heritage — playing the viola professionally as well.
Being able to play both stringed instruments on stage is an extraordinary feat achieved by artists of the highest caliber, like violinists David Oistrakh, Pinchas Zukerman, Frank Peter Zimmermann and Maxim Vengerov.
The 26-year-old is in Korea this week to participate as a member of the “Seven Stars,” a chamber music group founded by renowned conductor and pianist Chung Myung-whun in 1997. The chamber series was revived in 2009 after a sporadic yet explosively popular run between 1997 and 2002.
“I am so happy to be able to perform chamber music. In Korea, people tend to rate chamber musicians lower than soloists, but I hope that perception will eventually change,” Lee said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. “It is such an immense pleasure to share music with others and I can learn by seeing and hearing others play.”
The violinist seemed somewhat concerned about Koreans’ tendency to focus on individual excellence.
“For example, at the Olympics, Koreans have done well in individual sports like archery. But when it comes to team sports, they have not done as well.”
“Seven Stars” has established itself as one of the most high-in-demand classical performances where fans can see top artists in one sitting. The group will perform at the Seoul Arts Center Friday, with a program of Shubert and Brahms.
As violinist and violist, Lee has been concentrating on chamber music for the last few years rather than a solo career. The 2007 winner of the Avery Fischer Career Grant has been playing with top orchestras and conductors around the world since 1994.
She has been taking part in trios and quartets since childhood at the Juilliard School in New York.
“To become a great soloist, one must be a great chamber musician. Looking back, one will realize that the greatest instrumentalists in history have been chamber musicians as well,” the 2006 winner of the Leopold Mozart Competition said.
She referred to the case of pioneering Asian violinist Chung Kyung-wha, who for many years devoted herself to the Chung Trio on stage and in recording studios in the 1980s and 1990s.
“For our generation, the Chung family is an enormous inspiration. I joined the ‘Seven Stars’ three years ago because of the Chungs,” Lee said.
Chung Kyung-wha, now a faculty member at the Juilliard School, has openly expressed her admiration for Lee’s prodigious talent.
“I take those words as a sign of encouragement, urging me to do better,” Lee said.
Her two favorite pianists — the legendary Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter (1872-1941) and Andras Schiff, one of the most respected interpreters of the first Viennese School (Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven) — have been actively involved in chamber music.
As a chamber musician, Lee regularly performs at the Verbier, Caramoor, and Salzburg Festivals, among others. During the summers of 2004-2006, she participated at the Marlboro Festival of Music in Vermont.
Introducing hidden jewels
“Seven Stars” has collaborated with many renowned instrumentalists in introducing rarely-heard jewels of the chamber music repertoire.
The highlight of this year’s program is the Schubert Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat major, a masterpiece by the Austrian composer seldom performed in Korea.
“It is a deceivingly big work,” Lee explained. “Schubert composed the work in the last years of his life. The scale of the work is huge, like a Mahler symphony.”
While she will be playing the violin in the Schubert piece, she will take up the role of a violist in the second half of the concert in Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor Op. 60, “Werther.”
“This is a very dramatic, enigmatic piece. As a player, I am humbled by both of the pieces each time I play them.”
The young musician has shown a level of devotion to her profession, responsibility and maturity far beyond her years.
“My role as a musician is to help the audience feel that there is more than we have here in reality,” she said. The violinist expressed her wish to share the transporting experience of chamber music through the “Seven Stars” concert with Korean fans.
The musician carries on the Asian tradition of outstanding violin playing started by pioneers like Chung Kyung-wha and the Japanese violinist and pedagogue Midori, who serves as Jascha Heifetz Chair in violin at the USC Thornton School of Music.
“Despite the relatively short history of Western classical music in Asia, there are many great Asian teachers of classical music in the U.S. nowadays.”
Lee has great respect for violinists like Chung and Midori who paved the way for her generation to prosper.
“For them, it’s always about passing it on to the next generation,” she said. “Now, I fear that many young musicians lack a strong work ethic. In any profession, I think it is vital for people to have pride in and be utterly devoted to what they do.”
Lee has been mostly educated in the U.S. but she spent three years taking lessons from Kim Nam-yoon at the Korea National University of the Arts in her teens.
“In Korea, students are told how to do it and what to do. In the U.S. and Europe, the focus is on how you can think about what you can do.”
Lee also said that the Korean government should do more to promote the arts, which has the power to boost the people’s morale.
“In countries like Germany, the government builds the halls and the orchestras.”