Labé-Whang Piano Duo
Featuring the music of Schubert and Ravel
Hyunsoon Whang began her piano studies at the age of four and started playing public concerts at age twelve. Since then she has performed in more than 500 concerts across the United States, Europe, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Japan, and in her native Korea. Critics have praised her as “the kind of player who appears to immerse her entire being in the music,” and as one who has “always delivered with grace and beauty.”
Whang has appeared as a soloist with noted conductors Leonard Slatkin, Joel Revzen, Miriam Burns and the late Nicholas Harsanyi. She frequently performs chamber music with first class musicians such as members of the Cleveland Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the Miami String Quartet. With her pianist husband Thomas Labé, she performed as a two piano duo in Germany and France to critical acclaim and recorded Alexis Weissenberg's surrealistic musical Nostalgie on the Arkadia label in Montpellier, France. Last season she was invited to perform for the Oklahoma Consular Summit of the Asia-Pacific Region at the Governor’s Mansion. Her live performance videos from Drury University in Missouri have been broadcast recently on PBS stations in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Hyunsoon is on the touring artist roster for the Oklahoma Arts Council and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
Whang studied at the St. Louis Conservatory of Music and is a frequent guest pianist at the Shepley Music Series at the Christ Cathedral in downtown St. Louis. She also studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, The Juilliard School, and earned a doctorate from Indiana University. Whang holds the McMahon Endowed Chair in Music at Cameron University in Oklahoma where she has been teaching since 1993. Besides piano, she enjoys yoga and traveling.
The singular, compelling artistry of pianist Thomas Labé has been embraced by audiences and critics alike the world over. A prize winner in numerous international competitions, his engagements have included appearances as soloist with numerous orchestras including those of Chattanooga and Houston, and in recitals at Chicago's Ravinia Festival and Dame Myra Hess concert series, the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (Troy, NY), Washington University, the Staatstheater Darmstadt (Germany), Midem classique (France) and the International Piano Festival Monterrey (Mexico).
Labé's discography of internationally released recordings has captured exceptional praise in such publications as The Washington Post, Gramophone magazine, American Record Guide and CD Review. His debut release, The Virtuoso Johann Strauss, received a "Best of the Year' citation. Labé’s recordings are found with great frequency on the play lists of classical music stations the world over.
His first publication as editor-in-chief, a landmark new edition of the Schumann Piano Concerto, was issued by Alfred Publishing Company in March 2003. It is the first critically revised two-piano score to be based on examination of the autograph and the composer's own copy of the first printed edition.
Free Admission.
For more information:
(314) 935-5566 or kschultz@artsci.wustl.edu