We are delighted to announce that the recipient of the 2022 Gerald Moore Award for outstanding piano accompanists - which has a new home here at the RPS - is Jong Sun Woo.
You can discover more about Jong Sun here, through her own words, and her official biography. She receives a prize of £5,000 and the opportunity to play at London's prestigious Wigmore Hall. We particularly invite festival and venue programmers to follow Jong Sun's progress, and please be in touch with us if you would like to connect with her.
IN HER OWN WORDS
'My favourite activity as a child was to play pretend with a friend. Playing the song repertoire is not far from that. Here is a list of things I’ve been pretending to be as a song pianist just this past month:
- A horse trotting
- A young man’s frustration at not being the alpha male
- The haziness of being on opium
- An old man’s enthusiasm for death
- The sound of leaves rustling
- The sound of a man tumbling down the stairs after he insults another person’s big nose
- The climax of lovers’ tryst…
- The sound of the sea after a queen was drowned in it by a jealous dwarf
- A frog
- The sound of 4th century monks gossiping because a guy called Edan slept with someone
Being a song pianist means that I have the limitless possibilities of parallel universes under my fingers. I can be whatever, whoever, however I want, in around 3 minutes. Of course, playing pretend is even more fun when you do it with a playmate!
Playing pretend is universal - it exists across cultures and is fundamentally human, which is why a Korean pianist, raised in England like myself, can play songs in German, French and other languages. It makes me sad that there is such an air of ‘elitism’ surrounding art songs. Not to understate the great profundity of these masterpieces, but songs, perhaps more than other genres of classical music, has the potential to be as relatable as the next meme on the internet. In a world that’s getting gloomier by the minute, I believe my job is to create and protect these weird and wonderful mini parallel universes.'
BIOGRAPHY
Jong Sun Woo is a pianist who specialises in song and chamber music. She has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, performed at venues such as the Wigmore Hall, the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, the Crush Room at the Royal Opera House.
In 2021, she was awarded the Pianist’s Prize at the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards, performing with her duo partner Felix Gygli. As a duo, they won the English Song Prize at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and most recently, were selected as Leeds Lieder Young Artist 2022 and won the Leeds Lieder/Schubert Institute UK Song Prize. At Guildhall, she also won the Paul Hamburger Prize for song accompaniment awarded by Graham Johnson for his Poulenc Project.
Jong Sun was a scholar of Lied Akademie 2021/22 of Liedzentrum Heidelberger Frühling, mentored by Thomas Hampson and subsequently has performed during Schubert Woche at Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin and the Neuland Lied Festival, Heidelberg in 2022.
Jong Sun has gained her Masters and Artist Diploma in Piano Accompaniment with distinction at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating with Concert Recital Diploma awarded for her outstanding final recital.
In its new home at the RPS, the Gerald Moore Award will be chosen annually by a panel of expert piano accompanists, newly invited to fulfil this role each year alongside the Award's founder Graham Johnson. We are very grateful to Christopher Glynn, Eugene Asti and Pamela Lidiard for their valued part in the 2022 panel.