By Paul Horsley

Not every child prodigy makes it through adolescence to emerge as an extraordinary adult artist. One such musician to arrive recently at the “other side” is pianist Ji-Yong, who is quietly gaining attention as a brilliant pianist on the rise who has been willing to take some alternative roads toward his goal. “I’m a classical musician, which I intend to be the rest of my life,” the 22-year-old Korean-born New Yorker hastens to point out. “But I find a joy in being able to do other things as well.” Ji-Yong, who performed on the Harriman-Jewell Series here at the age of 13, in one of the few recitals I have ever referred to as “exquisite” in a review, returns to the Harriman’s Discovery Series on September 21st at the Folly Theater for a performance of Bach, Schumann, Brahms, Ravel and others – his first appearance here since 2004.

During the nine years since we last heard him play, the pianist has worked with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Choong-Mo Kang at the Juilliard School, appeared on PBS’s “From the Top” and at New York’s chic “new-classical” venue Le Poisson Rouge, performed for several summers with the amazing Ensemble Ditto in Korea (a chamber group that also includes violinist Stefan Jackiw and violist Richard O’Neill), played a series of Stop & Listen “guerilla” performances on elaborately decorated pianos set in the middle of busy Seoul streets, made excellent CDs of the music of Bach and Liszt, and experimented with video and dance in a trailer intended originally as a promo for a Korean concert tour. Still, he states uncategorically: “I’m a firm believer that music can, ultimately, speak for itself.” Though he may delight in theatrical aspects of music, both in performing and in touring life, he insists that “when you’re onstage delivering that music to the audience – the great music of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms – you have to let the music do its job. And I will never disregard that.” After many years in the Juilliard School’s prestigious Pre-College program, he is currently an undergraduate at the school, where he plans to graduate in another two years.

Ji-Yong’s early path as a prodigy was not atypical: He sat down at the piano at age 4 and, having never had a lesson, began picking out hymns he’d heard at church. Early study unearthed an amazing combination of gifts, not just technical skill but that deep, precocious musical understanding that not even scholars of child development fully understand. At 10 he became the youngest pianist to win the New York Philharmonic’s Young Artists Competition, which resulted in a performance at Avery Fisher Hall with then-music director Kurt Masur. More recently he was a 2012 winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions; this season he makes recital debuts in New York (Merkin Hall) and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

But even as a youth Ji-Yong cultivated wide interests, and he continues to do so. “Honestly I’m not one of those music-obsessed persons,” he told me in 2004, when he was an eighth-grader fascinated with Snoop Dogg, “Pimp My Ride” and sharp clothes from Abercrombie. “I’m not like those geeky music people. I don’t know how to be geeky.” Indeed, that proved to be fairly prophetic, as in more recent years Ji-Yong has achieved what we used to call matinee-idol status, partly as a member of Ensemble Ditto, which in Seoul has achieved near-“boy band” reknown. (Why no one has tried to bring Ditto to the United States is a mystery to me.) He has continued to “find his own path,” not just to be different, he says, but because he is a restless spirit and always has been. “I have to live my life daily and not necessarily try not to fit into the mold, just for the sake of not fitting into the mold. But what’s different about me now as a person, as opposed to 10 years ago … is that I basically have tried to rediscover myself.”

Moments of doubt? Sure. “Is this my calling? Is this what I want to do?” he’s asked himself. But as long as he’s working to build his imagination and remains open to new roads, especially those that can bring classical music to younger and non-conventional audiences, he’s happy. Part of his motivation in staying focused on career is his family, which left a life in Korea to bring Ji-Yong to New York for study. “They gave up literally everything they had, in terms of their careers and their culture and lifestyle, when they left Korea.” Ji-Yong and his family traveled parallel journeys, he says, “because at the time that I was trying to figure everything out, after having been this so-called child prodigy and going through all that, while they were simultaneously having a sort of second wind in life: ‘We know we’re not going back, so we’re going to make our lives here and fulfill our kids’ greatest potential.’ They invested so much in me, making a life here … and they want to make the most of it. And they are relying on me working hard – and I don’t blame them, after all they’ve invested.” Ji-Yong is, in the end, helping the family that helped him. “It’s a motivational factor for me. I mean, it’s not just my own personal artistic endeavors, but it’s for them.”

He continues to negotiate the perils of juggling student life with concert touring. This season he plays several dozen recitals, and one orchestra gig in Korea. In addition, he explores collaborations with dancers, visual artists, photographers and other artists from various fields. He finds it frustrating that Juilliard, a school that teaches three major disciplines (music, dance, theater), does so little to encourage mutual contact. His explorations into dance with his friend, Juilliard alumna Kacey Hauk, have resulted in a fascinating video, produced with the aid of director/videographer Sang Geun Lee, that can be seen here. Ji-Yong says he wanted to use the video to help sort out “the whole concept of dance, incorporating the mind and the body together, expressing the rhythms through your body.” If you want to hear Ji-Yong play, see his recent YouTube postings, such as that of Schumann’s “Widmung” here. For his most recent performance with Ditto, a bracing rendition of Mendelssohn’s C-minor Piano Trio with Stefan Jackiw and cellist Michael Nicolas, click here. (Music begins at 3:35.) “Can you feel the love in the music?” Ji-Yong writes on his Facebook page, which is probably the best place to keep up with his multifarious activities.

Indeed, Ji-Yong says many of his most moving musical experiences have been with the Ditto ensemble – performances in which “stuff comes out of your fingers and out of your mind that you’ve never even thought about before.” Often in such cases you leave the stage “asking yourself, ‘What just happened, what was that? You just want to think about it and you reflect on it.’ ” Through solo work and activities such as that with Ditto, Ji-Yong continues working toward avoiding the “bubble” that the classical world sometimes forces artists into – all the while expressing gratitude for what that industry has done for him. “Often we put ourselves into the bubble before anybody else does,” he says. “Do we really believe that we are this kind of elitist human being, with this sort of forbidden knowledge or something? … Music should be experienced by all, and should not be an elitist thing. Everybody should be able to hear great music.”

Ji-Yong performs at 7 p.m. on September 21st at the Folly Theater. The concert is free but tickets are needed. Call 816-415-5025. For more information on the concert go to hjseries.org. For Ji-Yong’s official bio go here. 

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.501).

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