Former Intel exec will conduct Prague” symphony and play piano with his wife Yong Jean Park.
The third week of this season’s Midsummer Mozart Festival will spotlight a former Bay Area husband-and-wife team for one evening at Le Petit Trianon in San Jose. T.W. Kang and wife Yong Jean Park will share the stage with Maestro George Cleve and the Midsummer Mozart Orchestra for a concert on August 2 at 7:30 p.m. Mr. Kang will serve as guest conductor for the “Prague” Symphony (Symphony No. 38 in D, K.504) and will join his wife, international pianist Yong Jean Park, in the Theme and Variations in G minor for piano for four hands, K.501. Ms. Park will also play the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor K.466, with maestro Cleve conducting.
T.W. Kang is one of those rare individuals who has mastered two seemingly very different worlds of endeavor.
On the one hand, Mr. Kang is an ex-Intel executive who is on the board of several global high tech companies, including NEC Electronics. On the other, he has actively sustained a musical performance career. He has guest conducted professional orchestras in three countries – the San Jose Symphony Orchestra in the US, the Korean Symphony Orchestra in South Korea, and the NHK Symphony Danyu Orchestra in Japan. In Korea, he conducted an entire evening of Beethoven, including the Coriolan Overture, and the Seventh Symphony. As a pianist, he has been performing annually as soloist and as a duo pianist. Kang first gained recognition in 1996 as a prize winner in the Japan Amateur Piano Competition.
No stranger to the podium, Mr. Kang previously shared the stage with Maestro Cleve in the 1980s, conducting the San Jose Symphony to a packed house at the Flint Center. The San Jose Mercury News and Channel 11 covered the story of “the conductor without the semi.”
Although he has taken lessons in conducting and piano from teachers around the world, his main educational focus has been related to high tech. Kang received his MBA from the Harvard Business School, and a BSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then spent a decade at Intel Corporation, after which he became a management consultant, and in this capacity, he currently serves as a board member of NEC Electronics Corporation, and SiPort, Inc. He is also author of the books Is Korea the Next Japan? and Gaishi: The Foreign Company in Japan.
Yong Jean Park’s performance and teaching activities are based in Tokyo, where she recently completed a set of concerts consisting of Brahms’ late piano works. In addition to public performances, she has been invited to play at a number of embassies in Tokyo. She is an active as an ensemble player, and in this capacity recently performed the entire set of Dvorak Slavonic Dances (four hand version), Schubert F-minor Fantasy (for four hands), and the Brahms Haydn Variations (two piano version).
Her teachers include Professors Amadeus Webersinke, Noriko Takeuchi, and Bo Hi Yun. She has obtained masters degrees in piano performance from the Musashino Academy of Music in Tokyo and Ewha Womans University in Seoul. During her studies, she was selected to play Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, and Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos. She debuted in Japan in a concert of works by Beethoven, Medtner, and Liszt.
The Complete Midsummer Mozart Festival, 2008 Season
The complete 2008 Midsummer Mozart Festival runs for three weeks, July 17- August 3. It features two different Programs, plus a special Third Week Program, at venues in Santa Clara, San Jose, San Francisco, Sonoma, and Berkeley
Program I – July 17-20
Divertimento in D, K.205
Piano Concerto in A, K.488 Soloist: Jon Nakamatsu
Oboe Concerto in C Major, K271k Soloist: Laura Griffiths
Symphony No. 38 in D, K.504 “Prague”
JULY 17 7:30PM – Mission Santa Clara, SCU Campus, Santa Clara
JULY 18 7:30PM – Herbst Theatre, San Francisco
JULY 19 6:30PM – Gundlach Bundschu Winery, Sonoma (outdoors)
JULY 20 7:30PM – First Congregational Church, Berkeley
Program II – July 24 – 27
Serenade for Woodwinds and Contrabass in B-flat Major, K.361 “Gran Partita”
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K.491 Soloist: Nikolai Demidenko
JULY 24 7:30PM – Mission Santa Clara, SCU Campus, Santa Clara
JULY 25 7:30PM – Herbst Theatre, San Francisco
JULY 26 6:30PM – Gundlach Bundschu Winery, Sonoma (outdoors)
JULY 27 7:30PM – First Congregational Church, Berkeley
Week III – July 31 – August 3
Piano Recital – Nikolai Demidenko
Including Mozart Piano Sonata in A minor, K310 and Chopin 24 Preludes, Op.28
Abduction from the Seraglio, the opera, semi-staged
Special Orchestral Concert conducted by Maestro Cleve and featuring pianists T. W. Kang and Yong Jean Park, including the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor K.466, Theme and Variations in G minor for piano for four hands, K.501, and Mr. Kang conducting the “Prague” Symphony
JULY 31 7:30 PM - First Cong. Church, Berkeley - Piano Recital, Nikolai Demidenko
AUGUST 1 7:30 PM - California Theater, San Jose – Abduction from the Seraglio
AUGUST 2 7:30 PM - Le Petit Trianon, San Jose – Orchestral Concert with guest connductor T.W. Kang and soloist Yong Jean Park
AUGUST 3 7:30 PM – California Theater, San Jose – Abduction from the Seraglio
Tickets are $30-60. Groups of 10 or more can receive deep discounts on single ticket prices. Gourmet picnic dinner boxes can be ordered with tickets to enjoy at the Gundlach Bundschu Winery concerts.
To purchase tickets, call City Box Office at (415) 392-4400.
For more information on the Festival, call 415-627-9141, visit www.midsummermozart.org or email amadeus@midsummermozart.org.
The Midsummer Mozart Festival was founded in 1974 by Maestro George Cleve and a regional consortium of classical musicians, who recognized him as one of the world’s great interpreters of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Midsummer Mozart is the only music festival in North America dedicated exclusively to Mozart. Under the baton of Maestro Cleve, the Festival presents a critically-acclaimed summer concert season featuring renowned international soloists as well as distinguished local artists, with a dedication to fresh and intelligent interpretation of the work of this most enduring and universally loved composer.
