Hayang Park, a Korean violist born in Seoul in 1998, currently resides in Europe, where she studies at the Kronberg Academy in Germany. Park began playing the viola at a young age and has established herself as an accomplished musician with numerous awards in competitions, including the 2022 Tokyo Competition, where she recently won first prize.
At the age of 13, Park attended the Yewon School of Art and later completed her undergraduate studies at Yonsei University in South Korea with Professor Sang-Jin Kim, earning a bachelor’s degree in 2019. From 2018 to 2021, she studied at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, under the direction of the renowned violist Nobuko Imai, supported by a scholarship from the Albeniz Foundation. Park has also had the opportunity to attend masterclasses with some of the world’s finest musicians, including Lawrence Power, Tabea Zimmermann, Christoph Poppen, and Antoine Tamestit. Thanks to her extraordinary musicianship and training, Park has already established herself as a rising star on the classical music scene, and her performances are eagerly awaited by audiences in Europe and Asia.
Even in her early years, Hayang Park won several national and international awards. At the age of twelve, she won the Concours International de musique et d’art dramatique Léopold Bellan. In 2017, she won third prize in the string section of the 15th Tokyo Music Competition, and performed Hindemith’s viola concerto “Der Schwanendreher” with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. She has also won numerous awards in her native Korea, including the Chun-chu Music Competition and the Seoul National Philharmonic Competition.
Park’s concert biography includes performances at Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and Matsumoto Harmony Hall in Japan with Maestro Seiji Ozawa. She has performed at numerous international music festivals, including the Marlboro Music Festival (USA), the Verbier Festival (Switzerland), the Seoul International Music Festival, the Kronberg Connects the World Chamber Music Festival, the Kronberg Academy Festival, and the TongYeong International Music Festival. She has also performed chamber music with cellists Steven Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, violinists Leonidas Kavakos, Christian Tetzlaff, Antje Weithass, Kolija Blacher, and Dong Suk Kang, and violist Nobuko Imai, among others.
For the 2023/24 season, Park has scheduled solo recitals and chamber music performances in Tokyo and Osaka, including at the Tokyo Suntory Hall and the Bunka Kaikan, and will perform with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra. She will also join the 2023 “Musicians from Marlboro” North American tour, which will take place in major cities such as Carnegie Hall Weil Recital Hall in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Boston.
Since October 2021, she has been studying at the Kronberg Academy with Nobuko Imai. Her studies are funded by the Ulla Minners/Lore Buscher scholarship.