Violinist Clara Kang Jumi will debut in town with Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra (SZSO) this Friday night.
Clara Kang Jumi
The prodigy-turned-master will perform Sibelius’ “Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47,” the composer’s only concerto. It is symphonic in scope, with the solo violin and all sections of the orchestra being equal voices. An extended cadenza for the soloist takes on the role of the development section in the first movement. Much of the violin part is purely virtuosic, but even the most showy passages alternate with the melodic.
Friday’s program will also include Mahler’s “Symphony No. 6 in A Minor.” The four-movement 80-minute piece is thought to be the most surreal, sonically imaginative and emotionally disturbing of all Mahler’s works. The composer himself conducted the premiere at the Saalbau concert hall in Essen, Germany in 1906. Sometimes referred to by its nickname “Tragic,” it is a mythical piece. The final movement, lasting half an hour and hallucinogenic, gives the impression of an emotional nightmare. When he revised the piece, Mahler deleted a third of the movement’s hammer-blows, supposedly because he was trying to avoid a three-fold jinx of fate.
Born in Germany into a musical family in 1987, Kang started playing the violin at 3. At age 5, she became the youngest student of Valery Gradov at the Mannheim Music College. When she was 7, she moved to the United States and received a full scholarship from the Juilliard School, studying with Dorothy Delay and Hyo Kang. She later enrolled at the Hanns Eisler College in Berlin and the Munich College for Music and Theater.
Having gone through a tragic finger accident at 11 and not being able to play the violin at all for a few years, she restarted her study at 16 and won top prizes at major international violin competitions starting 2007. In 2010, she won first prize in the Sendai International Violin Competition and a gold medal in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.
Kang is regularly being invited to perform with orchestras such as the New Jersey Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra.
She plays a 1725 “ex-Moeller” Guarnerius del Gesu violin loaned by Samsung Music Foundation.
Time: 8 p.m., March 8
Tickets: 50-880 yuan
Venue: Shenzhen Concert Hall, 2002 Fuzhong Road 1, Futian District (福田区福中一路2002号深圳音乐厅)
Metro: Line 3 or 4 to Children’s Palace Station (少年宫站), Exit A