These troubled days it is always heartening to learn of some foreign artist making the trek over here, despite the ongoing regional violence. In fact Yeon-Min Park is a repeat “offender.”
The thirty something pianist has paid us previous working visits before and her forthcoming three-date tour here, with the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble (through January 21), offers her another opportunity to share the stage with orchestra founder-conductor Barak Tal.
Park hails from South Korea where she studied under the tutelage of Israeli pianist and educator Dr. Aviram Reichert who spends a large slice of his time teaching there. He is also a regular at the annual Tel Hai International Piano Master Classes event, which accounts for some of the Korean musician’s forays to this part of the world.
“I’ve played with the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon Lezion and I also participated three times already in the Tel Hai master classes. So this will be my fifth time to visit Israel,” she notes.
The upcoming trip sees Park soloing in Chopin Piano Concerto no. 2 at concerts at the Rappaport Auditorium in Haifa (January 19, 8 p.m.), The Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv (January 20, 8 p.m.) and the Urban Conservatory in Acre (January 21, 7 p.m.).
The ensemble will also perform Haydn’s Symphony no. 52 and Symphony no. 10, and there will be some contemporary input with the world premiere of Talia Amar’s When Soft Voices Die. The latter was originally written, in 2021, for a piano quintet and was rearranged for the Ensemble last year.
Park says she is delighted to be coming back here and, in particular, to have another opportunity to run her practiced fingers over the Chopin chart. She says she is partial to the Polish composer’s oeuvre.
“Chopin is my first love. Everyone knows I fell in love with Chopin’s music.”
That, Park believes, is not a matter of personal taste. “There is a good reason why no one can resist his music,” she chuckles.
That may not be entirely true among, say, devotees of techno music or rap. But Chopin certainly has mass appeal, among classical music aficionados and casual listeners alike, and even jazz fans.
Park tends to keep her programmatic options open and has tackled a pretty broad range of material since she began her globetrotting career around a decade ago.
“Since I won the Liszt competition [in Utrecht, Holland in 2022] I have performed a lot of things by Liszt, and also Chopin, and all the composers people ask me to play.”
That prompted a question about competitions, and whether pitting one’s wits and musicianship against a bunch of other budding artists suits the creative ethos. Park adopts a pragmatic approach to contests in her professional field of interest. “I took part in many competitions, and I won some and in most of them I failed,” she laughs. C’est la vie. Regardless of official kudos she feels she gained some valuable experience along the way. For me the competition was the means for developing myself. It doesn’t give me all the fame, or all the money. That doesn’t come with it. But it can be a starting point of making one’s career. I really took all the opportunities to make myself grow.”
Competing against one’s peers also offers some time in the limelight, and allows the incipient professionals to get something of a handle on the real deal. After all, becoming a career musician is not just about keeping your chops in shape, practicing and learning the scores. They have to be able to produce the goods when it really matters, at prestigious venues with an expectant audience of paying consumers looking for a return on their hard-earned cash and, if possible, an enduring listening and viewing experience.
“The first goal of participating in competitions was to perform, to get an opportunity to perform in front of an audience. That was my first goal.”
A daunting proposition
Aside from the benefits that sounds like a pretty daunting proposition, regardless of how fired up and gifted the contestant is. Park says it is an indispensable baptism of fire.
“It is not easy, but I tried just to enjoy it. No matter how it goes, well or bad, I tried always to enjoy it.”
That sounds like a healthy take on the competition circuit and, in any case, until a musician gets their name out there and seals their spot in the marketing hierarchy, it is always going to be a bit of a scrap to keep up with the other folks in the same line of business.
Naturally, if the performing artist is enjoying themselves that will feed through to the spectators. Park’s take on the music jungle appears to have paid dividends. She won the prestigious George Enescu International Music Competition in 2021, as well as landing a Special Mention for the best interpretation of a Enescu composition. All told she seems to have done quite well for herself with top spots in contests in France, Italy, Austria, her native South Korea and Germany. The latter, tellingly, was in the Darmstadt Chopin Competition.
Park’s eagerness to come back here to work can also be traced back to her Israeli debut.
“It was wonderful to play with Rishon Lezion orchestra, and with Barak at the time. They showed their passion for the music and their love for playing with such a young artist. I was very young then,” she laughs. “They showed their respect and their joy for playing together.”
That positive synergy left its mark on the Korean pianist. “That influenced me in a really positive way and, after the performance, they clapped me on the stage. That support is one of my best experiences with an orchestra. And it is wonderful to be playing with Barak again.”
Over the years, her periodic visits and her initial Israeli connection through Reichert, Park also learned about the annals of Israeli classical music. She says she particularly appreciates the efforts of the likes of Paul Ben-Haim who made aliyah form Germany soon after Hitler’s rise to power, and began imbibing and subsequently incorporating some of the sounds and rhythms of Arabic music he heard in pre-state Palestine.
“Prof. Reichert played Ben-Haim’s Five Pieces for Piano. I didn’t know but it is really good. I liked it a lot,” she recalls. It also struck a chord with her as a musician from a non-western country. “For us [Koreans] western music is so new and it is very interesting. So I think a composer like Ben-Haim is very important for all culture. It gives some kind of identity for the music [of Israel].”
Park says she also enjoyed her off-stage time here, and settled in pretty smoothly. “I didn’t know much about Israel before I came. Everything was new but I just fell in love with Israel and the Israeli people. I found there are some common things between Korea and Israel. People are friendly, and also very clever and enthusiastic.” Our local edibles also added to Park’s enjoyment factor. “Israel has great food. I loved humus,” she exclaims. Who doesn’t?
For tickets and more information: (051) 221-8088 and soloists.co.il.
