A widely admired soloist, chamber musician and teacher, cellist Myung-Wha Chung has performed around the world in her five decades of international career. Born to a Korean family of extraordinary musicians, Ms. Chung in recent years led Korea’s PyeongChang (formerly Great Mountains) Music Festival & School as Artistic Director.
Over five decades, Ms. Chung has appeared with leading orchestras of the world including Britain’s Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Hallé, Birmingham, BBC orchestras and London Mozart Players; the Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, Washington National orchestras in USA; Rome’s Santa Cecilia; Berlin RIAS, SWR Symphonieorchester in Germany; the Suisse Romande and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra; the Israel Philharmonic, the Barcelona Municipal, the Belgian National and Rotterdam Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Symphony and the Mexican National Orchestra. She has given solo and chamber music concerts in major cities around the world – New York, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Dresden, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.
She has been a featured performer in many festivals including Lucerne, Maggio Musicale of Florence, Spoleto, Palma de Mallorca, Tivoli, Birmingham, Evian and Dijon. She has performed at the White House and the United Nations and appeared on nationally televised programs in the United States, Europe and Korea.
Born and raised in Korea, she studied with Leonard Rose at Juilliard and Gregor Piatigorsky at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and won numerous competitions.
In addition to her performing career, Ms. Chung has taught at New York’s Mannes College of Music and the Korean National University of Arts, nurturing a generation of superb musicians. She also has pursued social causes, serving as Goodwill Ambassador for such organizations as the UN International Drug Control Program, UNICEF in Korea, the City of Seoul as well as for the Korean National Human Rights Commission.
Her solo and piano trio recordings as part of the CHUNG Trio – with violinist sister Kyung-Wha Chung and pianist brother Myung-Whun Chung – have been issued on Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI. She has commissioned numerous new works especially from Korean composers and premiered them. She performed and taught children at the Maestra Chung Myung-Wha Music Village in PyeongChang and elsewhere in Korea.
She serves on the jury of international cello competitions including the Tchaikovsky, Cassado, Enescu, Isang Yun as well as the Queen Elisabeth competitions.
Ms. Chung has received numerous awards and honors including the Korean National Order of Cultural Merit Eungwan and the Excellence 2000 Award from the US-Asia Chamber of Commerce.
