During a recent trip to South Korea, I had the opportunity to meet the wonderful collaborative pianist Ja Yeon Kang. Collaborative piano – also known as accompanying – is the oft neglected art of working together with other musicians who are featured in the limelight, providing them with musical support through a keen ear for ensemble playing and exceptional emotional empathy. Where soloists strive to draw attention to themselves, collaborative pianists defer to serve others. As a collaborative pianist myself, I welcome any opportunity to recognize the remarkable work of amazing musicians such as Ms. Kang as vastly under-appreciated musical heroines/heroes. Ms. Kang was kind enough to share some of her international pedagogical background, as well as her insights into what life is like for professional musicians in the South Korean classical music scene.
Ja Yeon Kang, Pianist, has appeared as both soloist and collaborative artist at Barbican Centre, Wigmore Hall, Holywell Music Room, and LSO St. Luke, in London as well as throughout the numerous venues in the United States and Korea. A native of Korea, she holds a Bachelor’s Degree at the Seoul National University and a Master’s Degree at the Peabody Institute where she received the Laura Adelberg Award for her chamber work. Ms. Kang finished a Doctorate degree from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and City University London, supported by the Guildhall Trust and the Leverhulme Trust. She received the accompanist prizes at Guildhall school and the Concordia Foundation Award. Her primary teachers include Yong Hi Moon, Ronan O’hara, and Graham Johnson
Ja Yeon’s doctorate dissertation is on Schumann’s late vocal and piano music and she recently finished translating Nancy Reich’s 『Clara Schumann』 in Korean.
Previously, she was on the faculty of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for the keyboard study and worked as a repetituer at the National Opera Studio in London. Operatic experience includes Jonathan Dove’s ‘Flight’ with British Youth Opera and ‘Elvin und Elmire’ with Lieder Theater London.
Kang currently serves as the Adjunct Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Sookmyung Women’s University and teaches piano literature at the University of Seoul. She recently joined as a faculty at the Montecito International Music Festival in USA and has been also engaged as an official pianist for the Osaka international music competition.
In this special video episode of A Musical Life, I wanted to talk about the world of the piano from the perspective of a professional pianist. Contrary to what you might think, I’m actually embarrassed to confess how little I’ve actually known about the different makes and models of pianos, much less how they actually work to make beautiful sounds beyond my own instincts and musical training. If a professional pianist has a hard time understanding the differences between piano manufacturers and the mechanical details of what makes one piano different from another, then how is an average lay person or first time piano buyer supposed to fare? To that end, I’m incredibly grateful to author Larry Fine, a piano technician who wrote the pioneering book, “The Piano Book”, and then went on to share his in-depth knowledge of pianos on his website, 
Two podcast hosts meet in person for the first time at NAMM 2017! Hugh Sung from 
A lot of musicians struggle to find their artistic core, and communicate it to others. Mark Samples has developed a process for identifying and naming your core brand values so that you can tell a better story, reach more people, and get back to doing what you love: making music.
This coming Thursday, March 10th, if you happen to be in the Indianapolis area, I will be giving a performance lecture as part of Anderson University’s Intellectual Innovation IDEA-U series on my life as an entrepreneur artist and vision for changing the world through artistic innovation. The presentation begins at 7:30 pm in Anderson’s York Performance Hall, and I’ll be joined by violinist 
