Kyung Wha Chung

Early years

The middle of the 7 children in her family, Kyung Wha Chung's father was an exporter, and her mother a pianist and guitarist. She began piano studies at age 4, and violin studies at age 7, where she proved more sympathetic to the violin. She became recognized as a child prodigy, and by the age of nine she was already playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. As time progressed she steadily won most of the famous music competitions in Korea. With her siblings, Chung toured around the country, performing music both as soloist and as a part of an ensemble. As the children became famous in Korea, Chung's mother felt that it was too small a country for her children to further their musical careers, and she decided to move to the United States. All of Chung's siblings played classical instruments and three of them would become professional musicians. Her younger brother, Myung-whun Chung is a conductor and a pianist, and her older sister, Myung-wha Chung is a cellist and teacher at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul. The three of them have subsequently performed professionally in their later careers as the Chung Trio.

At age thirteen, she arrived in the United States. She followed her older flautist sister Myung-Soh Chung in attending the Juilliard School in New York, where she studied with Ivan Galamian.

In 1967, Chung and Pinchas Zukerman were the joint winners of the Edgar Leventritt Competition, the first time for such an outcome in the history of the competition. This prize led to several engagements in North America, such as with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. She substituted for Nathan Milstein for his White House Gala when he became indisposed.

Her next big opportunity came in 1970 as a substitute for Itzhak Perlman, with the London Symphony Orchestra. The success of this engagement led to many other performances in the United Kingdom and a recording contract with Decca/London. Her debut album with André Previn and London Symphony Orchestra, which coupled Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concertos, brought her international attention, including the top recommendation in the BBC Radio 3's Building a Library programme which compared the various recordings of the Sibelius. In Europe, Chung continued her musical studies with Joseph Szigeti.

Her commercial recordings include core repertoire violin concerti, including Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Berg. She has recorded chamber works such as the Brahms violin sonatas, Franck & Debussy sonatas, and Respighi & Strauss sonatas (with Krystian Zimerman, a recording which earned her a Gramophone Award for Best Chamber Recording). Other recordings include Vivaldi's Four Seasons, which was selected as Gramophone's editorial choice, and the Brahms violin concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic under Simon Rattle.

In 1997, she celebrated the 30th anniversary of her international debut at Barbican Centre in London and in her hometown of Seoul, Korea. In 2008, illness and injury caused her to halt her performing career temporarily. Her most recent return to live performance was in London at the Royal Festival Hall in December 2014. However, her reaction to the audience coughing, including persistent coughing from a child in her line of vision and her subsequent talking to the child's parents, caused widely reported controversy at this recital.

Chung has two sons, Frederick and Eugene, from her past marriage to the British businessman Geoffrey Leggett. Their 1984 marriage ended in divorce.

Educator

In 2007, Chung joined Juilliard as a member of the faculty of the school's Music and Pre-College Divisions. In 2011, she received the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts division in recognition of her 40-year-long career as a violinist and educator.

Chung trio recordings

See Kyung-Wha Chung discography at discogs.com