Ah Young Hong

Soprano Ah Young Hong has a large repertory extending as far back in time as Monteverdi but has an especially strong commitment to contemporary music. In her adopted U.S., she is a significant educator. Hong grew up in Seoul, South Korea, where her mother was a classical pianist. She became interested in a musical career while listening to her mother play, specifically Carl Maria von Weber's Invitation to the Dance, where she imagined dancers taking bows after the main section of the work. Hong took piano lessons from ages five to 17 but eventually stopped because she felt her hands were too small for her to succeed. Her family moved to the U.S., and she enrolled at the University of Virginia, intending to study medicine, but she joined a student choir and was given a solo in the Pie Jesu movement of Fauré's Requiem. "I remember thinking how incredible it was that, instead of a piano, my instrument was inside me. It is a beautiful memory," she told the Baltimore Sun (August 18, 2014). Hong attended the Peabody Institute in Baltimore for vocal studies, earning a bachelor's degree in 1998 and a master's in 2001. Hong is in demand as a concert attraction and has appeared with the Phoenix Symphony, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among other ensembles. A breakthrough was a series of appearances in 2013 and 2014 in Michael Hersch's one-person opera On the Threshold of Winter at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The opera depicted a terminal illness, and Hong's performance was praised. Since then, although she has a broad repertory, including works by composers as diverse as Monteverdi, Bach, and Shostakovich, she has emphasized contemporary music in her work, such as Milton Babbitt's difficult Philomel. That work appeared on Hong's 2018 debut on the Innova label, Breath Upward, as did the title work by Hersch. She has collaborated with violinist and contemporary music specialist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and has appeared with various contemporary music ensembles, including the FLUX Quartet, Ensemble Klang, and the Konzerthaus Berlin's ensemble-in-residence, Ensemble unitedberlin. Hong returned in 2020 with a recording of Hersch's I hope we get a chance to visit soon, and in 2022 with the same composer's The Script of Storms.
© James Manheim /TiVo