Further Reading
6th July 2017
David talks to the South Korean violinist about her debut disc of Britten, Milhaud, Schnittke and more on Rubicon Classics.
Korean-born British violinist Joo Yeon Sir is a name to watch. Also a composer, Joo Yeon won the coveted title of BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year in 2005 and her works have been performed at major venues and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. She has received a Royal Philharmonic Society Emily Anderson Award, and been selected for Making Music’s Philip & Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists and a Tillett Trust Young Concert Artist Platform.
Following studies at the Purcell School and at the Royal College of Music where she twice won the Concerto Competition, Joo Yeon was also Constant & Kit Lambert Junior Fellow 2014-2015 (awarded by The Worshipful Company of Musicians), presenting a sold-out concert series of the complete Beethoven’s 10 Sonatas for Violin and Piano cycle with 10 different pianists at RCM.
Future highlights include debut appearances at the Royal Festival Hall and Wales Millennium Centre and a Young Artist Residency at St. John’s Smith Square.The Strad magazine reviewing a Wigmore Hall concert commented: "Exuberant…feline and seductive, rattling off the fiendish cadenza with bravura and oodles of personality". That personality comes to the fore in this eclectic and emotionally wide-ranging recital of suites and fantasies by a group of composers you won’t often find together on a concert programme. Britten’s youthfully precocious Suite Op 6, Milhaud’s suave ‘Le Boeuf sur la toit’ and Frolov’s effervescent fantasy on themes from Gershwin’s ‘Porgy & Bess’ rub shoulders with Schnittke’s affectionate hark back to the baroque and de Falla’s passionate 'Popular Spanish Songs'. She plays on a Matteo Goffriller violin kindly provided by Georg von Opel. This recording was produced by Andrew Keener.