Clara-Jumi Kang

As an artist of the highest musicality, and of impeccable sophistication and sovereignty, the violinist Clara-Jumi Kang has already received numerous awards, such as the first prize at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and the Sendai International Music Competition in 2010, and at the Seoul International Violin Competition in 2009.

Highlights of the 2023/24 season have included her debut at the 2023 Edinburgh Festival, performances with the Israel Philharmonic under Lahav Shani, and with the Cincinnati and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra on tour with Myung-Whun Chung, returns to the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Auckland Philharmonia, and her debut with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In summer 2024 she makes her first appearance at the Salzburg Festival.

Previous highlights have included her debut at the BBC Proms, and performances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the Tokyo Metropolitan and the Taipei Symphony Orchestras, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Korean newspaper Dong-A Times has listed her among the Top 100 influential Koreans, and she has also won the Daewon Music Award and the Kumho Musician Award.

At the age of five she made her concerto debut with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, and since then she has appeared under conductors such as Ryan Bancroft, Lionel Bringuier, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Paavo Järvi, Lü Jia, Jun Märkl, Juanjo Mena, François-Xavier Roth, Yuri Temirkanov and Kazuki Yamada.

As an enthusiastic chamber musician, she appears regularly at music festivals and with fellow-performers including Janine Jansen, Gidon Kremer and Mischa Maisky. Clara-Jumi Kang’s discography with Decca comprises the album Modern Solo and a Brahms and Schumann album with Yeol-Eum Son.

She was born in Mannheim to South Korean parents. She was taught by Valery Gradow at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts, where she was the youngest student at the institution, and received a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School with Dorothy Delay. She went on to study at the Korean National University of Arts with Nam-Yun Kim and at the University of Music and Theatre Munich with Christoph Poppen.

Clara-Jumi Kang plays the Stradivari ‘Thunis’ from 1702.