Yi’s Evolving Art

Min Joo Yi earned a Master of Music degree and a Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Musical Arts program there. Prior to having embarked on these post-graduate studies, the pianist majored in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton. 

Not your usual path to a career as a concert pianist, but it never hurts to have a fallback in the competitive field. 

“Actually, I was pretty serious about piano before college,” she said over the phone from New Haven, CT, where Yi is completing a fellowship at Yale. “But it came down to Princeton and Julliard, and I decided it would be a good idea to pursue academics first, just in case I don’t make it.” 

Yi has no regrets, though, as the native of Korea learned valuable skills at the Ivy League school.

“It was a very important experience for me to learn how to research really well,” she explained. “I look at musical scores in a very different way now having developed my research skills. I apply that all the time. And I was able to keep in touch with the piano. I co-founded the Princeton Pianos Ensemble, inviting all the pianists on campus to come play multi-piano, multi-hand work, to create community in what is very much an isolating field.” 

Yi’s full-time focus of course has been on piano ever since. Last summer, she emerged from the community of solo pianists at the Music Academy of the West’s festival to prevail in competition, the prize including a cash award and, more significantly, the opportunity to perform the winning piece with the Santa Barbara Symphony this weekend. 

The performances create something of a different kind of community, as the concert boasts five different solo piano competition winners from international events, each playing one of the five Beethoven piano concertos that span the composer’s early to middle periods – the phase during which Beethoven transitioned from a Classical to Romantic approach. The works are considered cornerstones of the piano repertoire, full of technical challenges but also emotional breadth and interplay with the orchestra. 

Yi kicks off the concerts on Saturday evening with “Concerto No. 3 in C Minor,” followed by Evren Ozel, bronze medalist of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, performing “Concerto No. 4 in G Major.” The keyboard marathon continues with “Concerto No. 1 in C Major,” with Dmitry Shishkin, a Silver Medalist of the International Tchaikovsky Competition and winner of the Geneva International Music Competition, followed by “Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major,” performed by Angie Zhang, an American Pianists Association Finalists Award laureate and 2022 MAW fellow. The weekend concludes with the most famous concerto, “No. 5 in E-flat Major, ‘Emperor,’” performed by Jonathan Mamora, a multi-international competition winner. 

“I’ve always wanted to be part of a marathon like this, and I think people are going to love it,” Yi said. “They won’t feel overwhelmed by Beethoven but (rather) be able to really appreciate everyone’s individual artistry hearing them all in a row.” 

The pianist said she was somewhat surprised to win the competition last summer because “Concerto No. 3” was new to her at that point. 

“I’d been avoiding it beforehand because there are some parts in the left hand that are a little larger than my hand span was comfortable with,” she said. “Playing it last summer went much better than I expected.” 

Now, Yi is thrilled to perform it with the orchestra in front of a much larger audience at the Granada. 

“There are definitely some tempestuous moments, and others that are heavenly, but I also want to convey more of a yearning feeling of the inner conflict where he’s trying to find inner peace,” she said. “It’s the only one of his concertos in a minor key, but it ends in C Major, so it’s a journey. It’s actually a little easier to convey that in a large hall.” 

As was the case in her MAW summer – when the pianist performed in a trio with faculty artists Erin Keefe and Julie Albers, and served as the solo pianist in one of Andy Akiho’s pieces featuring seven percussionists – Yi will be plenty busy during her return to town. She’ll play Beethoven’s “Sonata Opus 10, No. 2, in F Major,” and variations on an opera aria as part of a Symphony fundraiser on January 16, join Mamora in Sunday’s post-concert Dinner with the Artists fundraiser, and will stick around to play a special private recital on Tuesday at Casa Dorinda. 

Hopefully, she’ll also find a few minutes to revisit a favorite spot from last summer. 

“Butterfly Beach is so beautiful,” she said. “I’m really excited to go back.” 

Classical Corner: Camerata Back with More Beethoven 

The weekend Beethoven bonanza actually begins on Friday night, January 16, when Camerata Pacifica’s “Beethoven 32” project continues with Principal Piano Gilles Vonsattel performing two more of the composer’s solo sonatas, including the less frequently heard “No. 27 in E Minor, Op. 90,” and “No. 19 in G Minor, Op. 49, No. 1.” The concert is part of the momentous three-year Beethoven cycle featuring Vonsattel playing all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in a hybrid blend of solo recitals and chamber programs. The concert at Hahn Hall also includes violist Che-Yen Chen joining Vonsattel for Schubert’s “Arpeggione Sonata in A Minor, D. 821,” and Schumann’s “‘Märchenbilder,’ Op. 113,” serving as sonorous companions to the solo pieces. Visit www.cameratapacifica.org.