Suejin Jung, piano
Release date: April 7th 2023 on TRPTK
12 page booklet with cover art by Brendon Heinst
Duration: 58m 46sec
Recording and mastering engineer: Brendon Heinst
Recording location: Studio 1, Muziekcentrum van de Omroep, Hilversum
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Suejin Jung leads a distinctive international career as a concert pianist and multimedia artist. Her immersive performances and commitment to engage with the important questions of our time has led her to curate numerous multimedia projects that unite sound, visual and media. Her multimedia project “Breathmark”, that focuses on the themes of climate and racial injustice won first prize in the 2020 Goodmesh Concours in the Netherlands. Her debut album releases in April with TRPTK recording label. Supported by grants including the New York Foundation for the Arts, Suejin breaths new life into classical and contemporary repertoires through her interdisciplinary collaborations.
As a multifaceted musician, Suejin has been invited to perform as a collaborative pianist at festivals such as Music Academy International, Ecoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, Music in the Vineyard, and New York International Piano Competition. She serves as piano collaborator at the California State University Fullerton. She has been a featured soloist with Ensemble Calliopée , Ruse Philharmonic Orchestra, Rutgers Symphony Orchestra, The Discovery Orchestra, Virtuosi Brunesis Orchestra, Monmouth Symphony Orchestra and her performances have been broadcasted and live-streamed on PBS and The Strad.
Suejin received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, as a recipient of Kamiya Sisters, Paul Jacobs Memorial, and G.G. Ulmer Memorial Scholarships. She was a recipient of the 2019-2020 Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship and studied rare works of 20th century female French composers with Anne Queffélec at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris during this time. She is a Doctoral candidate at the Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts.
As an educator, Suejin has served as a faculty member at Drew University, Rutgers University Extension Division, New York Music School, and PS 11 in Manhattan as an Education Outreach Fellow through the Juilliard School. Suejin is currently based in Orange County, California. (high-resolution picture)
“Nature is my sanctuary and source of creative energy; I retreat to it whenever I find myself overwhelmed by stress or questioning my purpose. The grandiose, expansive, and symbolic styles in the music of Rameau, Chopin, and Debussy depict what I see and feel in nature — joy, hope, and love. I am transported into nature when I play my piano part in Kyong Mee Choi’s, musique concrète composition “Until Heard,” which features raw recordings and electronically produced sounds of nature. My organic senses are revitalized in ways piano acoustics alone have never done.
When I came across Jarosław Kapuściński’s audio-visual composition “Side Effect,” I immediately fell in love with its incredible marriage of sound and visual landscape. The music follows ten short videos, each shot 150 meters above ground in Poland by photographer and pilot Kacper Kowalski. The aerial view reveals beautifully how humans and nature can coexist symbiotically and aesthetically.
The feature track “Breathmark” explores our collective need to address the climate crisis and social injustice. It was a collaboration between myself, as the pianist and creative director, composer Scott Ordway, animator Qi Lu, and dancer Jada German. After completing this project, I knew there was more to be done. The reality of the climate crisis today leaves us in a dissonant environment: extreme hurricanes, endangered species, melting ice sheets, devastating wildfires. To put together this hour-long musical puzzle, I mixed the standard repertoires of Rameau, Chopin, and Debussy with new contemporary music — a juxtaposition of what nature represented for composers back then and now. The blended tones of classical and contemporary music with other forms of art, express the inexpressible: harmony in this cacophonous world.”
-Suejin Jung
1) Until Heard
Claude Debussy
2) Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir
3) Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest
Frédéric Chopin
4) Barcarolle, Op.60
Jarosław Kapuściński
Side Effects
5) Bird’s Landing
6) Earth Mover
7) Dock
8) Canoe
9) Beach Comber
10) Waterslide
11) Cemetery
12) Harvest
13) Bridge
14) Icebreaker
Jean-Philippe Rameau
15) Le rappel des oiseaux
Scott Ordway
16) Breathmark