SERENADE WITH SOYOUNG YOON

Brimming with prodigious talent and vivacious energy, the youthful South Korean violinist Soyoung Yoon makes her debut in Singapore this November. "Enormously talented, with a terrific temperament and a bouncy effervescent quality" (The Strad), Soyoung won the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition at age 17 and has gone on to win at six more competitions, including the Henryk Wieniawski and David Oistrakh Violin Competitions.

She performs Leonard Bernstein's rarely heard Serenade, a violin concerto in all but name, and said to be the famed American conductor-composer's personal favourite composition. The work, whose full name is Serenade after Plato's Symposium, depicts five interpretations of love, scored for strings, harp and an array of percussion that accompany the solo violinist. She performs on a Guadagnini violin made in 1773.

The concert is conducted by returning Polish maestro Michał Nesterowicz, one of Europe's most sought-after rising conductors. He brings with him the beautiful craftsmanship of his countryman Henryk Górecki (1933-2010) in the form of his serene Three Pieces in Old Style. Closing the concert is Beethoven's vibrant and energetic Eighth Symphony, whose zest and sunny energy hinted little at his increasing deafness.

http://www.sso.org.sg/