Classical music forces meet at the Tribe

November 27, 2009 – She has been described as a “sensational force”. Eugenia Choi. She started playing the violin at the age of three and made her solo concerto debut at ten years old.
 
Tonight, Friday, November 27, she will be at the Tribe in Village Market, Gigiri. And she won’t be the only classic household name there.

Jennie Jung, a renowned pianist, will be with her in the exclusive concert, which will feature music by Beethoven, Ravel, Faure and more, according to organisers.

It will be the first classical music event of its kind in the country and fans will have to cough up Sh8,000 for tickets, inclusive of dinner (Sh6,000 without).

Apart from her several performances across the world, Choi is well known as having a dedication to bridge music and nature through benefit concerts for conservation organisations.

She regularly performs at major performing arts centres such as Lincoln Centre and Carnegie Hall in New York, Kimmel Centre’s Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, Symphony Hall in Boston, Kravis Centre in Palm Beach, Dame Myra Hess series in Chicago, Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Vienna Saal-Mozarteum in Austria, Teatro Municipale in Santiago, Chile, Tokyo International Forum in Japan, Palais de Fontainebleau in France, and others worldwide.

Choi was recently invited by National Geographic and the Aspen Institute to perform concerts and speak as a representative of the arts at a climate change summit in Norway alongside leaders in politics, business, and philanthropy.

Born in Canada from Korean parents, Choi received her Doctorate degree in music from The Juilliard School as a C.V. Starr Foundation Fellow.

Jennie on the other hand made her debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the age of eleven and has since been active as both a soloist and collaborator in North America.  She has participated in master-classes and studied with artists such as Dalton Baldwin, Anne Epperson, Peter Frankl, Margo Garrett, Martin Katz, Anton Kuerti, Robert MacDonald, Karl Ulrich-Schnabel, and Arie Vardi.

Jennie is a member of the Jung Trio with her sisters Ellen (violin) and Julie (cello), who have won accolades such as the Grand Prize at the 2002 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition and was the Bronze Medal at the 2002 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

Their recording of Dvorak’s Piano Trio in F Minor was recently released by the Groovenote Label on LP and is due out on CD.

Together with her sisters she too has performed in benefit concerts, the most recent being in October for the Cure, a foundation which focuses on breast cancer awareness.

Jennie graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree from Juilliard in May, 2008, and is currently an adjunct professor at Vanguard University (Costa Mesa, CA), as well as collaborative pianist for the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles.