Pianist Min Joung Kim explores the complications of love in the Lewisville Lake Symphony’s International Chamber Series concert on March 26, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. The concert is offered in cooperation with the University of North Texas and takes place at Trinity Presbyterian Church 5500 Morriss Road in Flower Mound (just south of Marcus HS, on the other side of the road).
The full concert details are at www.lewisvillesymphony.org. The concert is free. A donation to the Symphony is appreciated.
The program opens with a portrait of Ondine, the heroine of one of Debussy’s Preludes. According to legend, the seductive and amoral water nymph married a two-timing human with unfortunate consequences for both.
“L’Isle Joyeuse,” also by Debussy, was inspired by Watteau’s painting “Embarcation for Cythera” which caused an uproar at its first showing at the Académie Royal de Peinture et de Sculpture. The painting explores the preoccupation of French nobility with too much time on their hands. The Académie, in pragmatic French style, invented a new category in which to fit the painting and thus undercut its scandalized critics.
Ravel’s Jeux d’Eaux (Water Games) draws a portrait of the elaborate mechanical fountains and water stairs in public gardens that surprised lovers and passersby with sudden jets and cascades of water.
Franz Liszt, who had a lifetime Teflon ability to get out of romantic scrapes, took Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” turned it into his own perspective on Don Juan as well as a monument to his own pianistic skills and showmanship.
The composition makes extremely forbidding technical demands, among them hair-raising passages in chromatic thirds, and one instance of rapid leaps in both hands across almost the whole width of the keyboard. Alexander Scriabin seriously injured his right hand by over-practicing this piece and wrote the funeral march of his First Sonata in memory of his damaged hand.
Born in South Korea, pianist Min Joung Kim had her first piano lesson at the age of seven. By the age of nine she was already entering piano competitions and eventually won many significant competitions in Korea including the Sam-Ik national competition. She also appeared as soloist with the Pusan Philharmonic Orchestra and the Seoul Symphony Orchestra.
She was a guest faculty member at the Tong Il Han Piano Institute, has appeared at the MusicAlp festival in France, and as soloist with the Ulsan University Chamber Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Radio Orchestra.
Currently Miss Kim is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Texas, where she studies with Dr. Pamela Mia Paul.
