Chopin Salon @ Home: Min Joo Yi
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Concert pianists embark upon an interesting journey when they enter the world of music, often at a very young age. The journey can be full of fascinating twists and turns. Interests and passions wax and wane over time, and sometimes it is challenging to stay laser focused on a singular professional pursuit where success is measured on so many different levels. The skills, talents, and brilliant intellect of an artist can often translate across incongruent fields.
In this episode of the Chopin Salons @ Home we were fortunate to spend some time with Min Joo Yi, one of six semi-finalists at the 2020 National Chopin Piano Competition. Min Joo is currently in her first year of the Doctorate of Musical Arts program at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.
Divergent Pursuits
Executive Director, Barbara Muze, was fascinated to learn that Min Joo Yi also holds a bachelors degree (AB) in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, along with a music performance certificate, from Princeton University. Muze asked Min Joo if it was a challenge to reconcile these seemingly disparate fields of study. “Interestingly, I never felt that the two fields had to be reconciled,” said Min Joo, “but rather that my progress in either one synergistically helped me grow as a person. There are some surprising similarities between the two fields: the isolation and concentration in honing skills whether in a lab or a practice room; the critical problem-solving skills to analyze where an experiment went wrong or a seemingly insurmountable technical challenge; and the communication skills in editing or practicing the most effective expression of my ideas, whether in research articles or in musical score interpretation. I have often been asked why I ‘switched’ to music after obtaining an undergraduate biology degree, but I prefer not to view it as choosing one discipline over the other. Though sometimes I wonder if I might miss fewer notes now had I taken the path of my undergraduate offer to attend Juilliard, the greatest lesson I learned at Princeton was not related specifically to music or biology. Rather, it came from the valuable experience of being immersed in an environment full of passionate individuals studying diverse fields. Life seems the most rewarding when experienced through curiosity and a passion to learn, and the creativity deriving from overcoming obstacles in any field can be applied in broader contexts, continuing to inspire me to learn more about the world and myself. Perhaps because of this, music holds a unique position as one of the most stimulating fields with the fewest ‘correct’ answers and the most possibilities for limitless growth, and I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue it.”
Fortunate for us as well! Please enjoy Min Joo’s performance from the Competition:
Favorites?
“My favorite piece to prepare for this competition was Scherzo No. 4, said Min Joo, “and though it was new for me at the time, it influenced me to submit program changes a month before the competition to include in my second round. This piece is particularly intriguing to me because the term ‘scherzo’ literally translates to ‘joke,’ but this scherzo always struck me as one of Chopin's more serious and expansive works. I am also very partial to his Piano Concerto No. 2, which I had programmed for the final round, with its ethereal second movement. The set of Mazurkas Op. 17 in the third round proved to be the most personally challenging-- they appear deceptively simple, but feature infamously evasive rhythms and many repetitive sections with only slight differences. These mazurkas presented the greatest challenge to both my memory and my interpretive capabilities in this competition.”
A Lifelong Journey
We asked Min Joo what it was like to prepare such an extensive amount of repertoire for the Competition.
“My programs featured repertoire spanning from those I had known since my early teens, to pieces I had learned just months before the 2020 National Chopin Competition. Because the competition focused on music by a single composer, I was able to delve more deeply into the details of Chopin's markings. Since he frequently published multiple versions of the same piece, I cross-referenced multiple editions throughout my preparation to reconcile some surprising notational differences and inform my interpretive decisions. Some observations I made while learning my newer pieces gave me fresh perspectives on my more marinated repertoire; this emphasized to me that one can never really be ‘done’ learning any given piece, but rather that it becomes a lifelong friend that constantly converses and evolves with me on my musical journey.”
Miami Memories
Now that an entire year has passed since the Competition’s conclusion on March 1, 2020, we asked Min Joo to reflect on some of the more vivid moments and lasting memories from a very intense week:
“The biggest highlight of my experience in Miami was my great fortune of staying with my incredibly considerate host family, Inga and Francesco Senis. Not only did they prepare many delicious and healthy meals with homegrown ingredients, but Inga was also a wise mentor with lots of valuable advice on preparation and the mentality for stage performance from her days as a professional model. I will especially never forget our illuminating talks in the car ride to each of my competition rounds, and the fresh jasmine flowers she left in a vase for me every night. I'm also very lucky that my host family helped me procure practice facilities from their wonderful neighbors -- thank you to the households of Bruce and Agnes for their wonderful pianos and the patience of all inhabitants, including pets, in tolerating my practice! I think the only lowlight is the fact that I didn't get to explore Miami more. Even this has a silver lining: I happened to open the Pokemon Go app in the airport while waiting for my departure flight, and luckily managed to catch a regional-exclusive Heracross (only available in southern Florida and southern Texas)!”
Shout out to Sean Chen
“This is my recording of Ravel's La Valse arranged by Sean Chen. It is an especially colorful, and monstrously difficult, arrangement that somehow manages to fit in many orchestral details not featured in the original arrangement. At first, I actually tried to write my own arrangement, but navigating the full score of the orchestral work proved an extremely difficult task, and Sean's version and artistic decisions within fulfilled everything I could have imagined and more.”
Sean Chen, in addition to winning the American Pianists Award in 2013, was also a semi-finalist at the 2010 National Chopin Piano Competition and was a winner of the Chopin Foundation’s Scholarship Program for Young Pianists. We hope you enjoy Min Joo’s brilliant performance of Sean’s brilliant arrangement.
Fun Fact!
This concluding section of our Chopin Salons @ Home is often the most fascinating. Our artists have enjoyed sharing little known facts that truly are fun.
“My good luck charm is a stuffed purple rabbit named Bumper, which I received after winning a youth drawing contest at four years old. He has since witnessed all of my piano competitions and public solo performances from backstage ever since I started playing piano at age six; in Miami, he was hidden backstage in my backpack! For the first few years, I believed Bumper was the only one of his kind, though I should have been suspicious of the default name on the attached tags. This belief was eventually shattered when I brought him to my first-grade show-and-tell day only to see another girl holding her own Bumper, which I approached her to confirm in my disbelief. At the time, I reconciled this existential crisis by concluding that even if there were many Bumpers in existence, my Bumper was still unique because of the sheer fact that he had experienced and shared unique memories with me. Incidentally, reading Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince was a true personal revelation -- the fox's taming and the little prince's declaration about his rose's uniqueness compared to other rosebushes really resonated with me, bringing closure to this crisis and reaffirming my cherished bond with Bumper.”
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Chopin Foundation programs are made possible with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; and the City of Coral Gables. Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; Funding Arts Broward; the Miami Salon Group; and scores of generous donors.