Min-Jung Kym with Philharmonia Orchestra in Barnstaple

British pianist Min-Jung Kym has a widely-recognised reputation for her diverse range of styles and repertoire as a soloist, duo and chamber musician. A former Purcell School scholar, Min-Jung made her London solo concert début at the age of twelve with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. Her numerous prizes and awards include the British Young Pianist of the Year, Ettlingen International and the YMFE competitions. As a scholar at the Royal Academy of Music, she studied with Christopher Elton and graduated with the Eric Brough and Elsie Horne prizes, in recognition of her outstanding concerto and recital performances in her final year.

Min-Jung’s interpretations have been enjoyed in the USA, Europe and throughout Britain at venues including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Purcell Room, St John Smith’s Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Leicester’s De Montfort Hall. She has also appeared at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Cheltenham Festival and the RNCM Broadwood International Piano Festival.

Min-Jung is the pianist of choice for the master classes for legendary violinist, Ruggiero Ricci, and has enjoyed successful collaborations with violinists Pierre Amoyal and Sergei Levitin, the renowned Haffner Ensemble, with whom she gave a highly-acclaimed Wigmore recital, and the Molto Musica Ensemble.

A regular invitee at Music Societies and Festivals throughout the UK, her versatility combined with a subtlety of technique, are widely appreciated.A Steinway artist, Min-Jung will make a number of concerto appearances in the forthcoming season with the world-renowned Philharmonia Orchestra.

Below is the review from the Saturday night's performance by North Devon Journal

Felix Mendelssohn:
Overture, Nocturne and Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream
Ludwig Van Beethoven:
Piano Concerto No.4 in G, Op. 58
Antonin Dvorak:
Symphony No.7 in D minor, Op. 70

This superb orchestra, together with the brilliant Min-Jung Kym in the Piano Concerto, gave us an evening and concert to remember for a long time.
We had a delicious hors d'oeuvre from the Philharmonia in the Mendelssohn to whet our appetites, followed by a memorable offering from soloist and orchestra in the piano concerto.
Finally came the Dvorak, which demonstrated the musical versatility of these fine musicians – what a splendid sonorous sound they produced. All of this was controlled with aplomb by Shuntaro Sato, whose reputation as a conductor is world-wide.
After many years of Queen's concert-going, I do not recall an evening giving me greater pleasure. The theatre was full, the atmosphere electric, and, as usual, an enthusiastic audience all added to the magic of the performance.

The Philharmonia left the stage to rapturous applause after many a curtain call. Thank you to North Devon Theatres for a continuing excellent series of concerts.

Discover Korean Food #3: Dr. Sook-Ja Yoon's Bibimbap (THE EAST Campaign in Association with The Institute of Traditional Korean Food)

Bibimbap is a dish mixed of cooked white rice, vegetables, beef, garnishes and fried red pepper paste. It is said that this dish came from the customs of memorial services and rural villages. This dish is very easy to prepare, just mixing together cooked white rice with various vegetables, namul and red pepper paste.

◎ Ingredients & Quantity

* 450 g (2½ cups) non-glutinous rice, 600 g (3 cups) water

* 300 g young pumpkin, 2 g (½ tsp) salt

* 200 g skinned bellflower roots, 4 g (1 tsp) salt

* 120 g beef (top round), 200 g soaked brackenseasoning sauce : 18 g (1 tbsp) soy sauce, 6 g (½ tbsp) sugar, 9 g (2 tsp) minced green onion, 5.5 g (1 tsp) minced garlic, 2 g (1 tsp) sesame salt, 0.3 g (⅛ tsp) ground black pepper, 4 g (1 tsp) sesame oil
* 2 ea (120 g) egg

* 3 g kelps, 26 g (2 tbsp) edible oil

* Fried red pepper paste : 95 g (5 tbsp) red pepper paste, 20 g minced beef, 9 g (2 tsp) minced green onion, 5.5 g (1 tsp) minced garlic, 90 g (6 tbsp) water, 18 g (1½ tbsp) sugar, 19 g (1½ tbsp) sesame oil

◎ Preparation

1. Wash the rice, soak in water for 30 min. drain water on a strainer for 10 min. (550 g).

2. Cut the young pumpkin into 5~6 cm-long, then cut them into 0.3 cm-wide/thick round, shred into matchstick, soak with salt for 10 min. wipe water with cotton cloths. Shred bellflower roots into 5~6 cm-long and 0.3 cm-wide/thick, add salt and fumble them with hands, let it sit for 10 min. then rinse and squeeze water out.

3. Clean blood of beef with cotton cloths, shred into 6 cm-long and 0.3 cm-wide/thick. Wash the bracken, cut into 5 cm-long. Season beef and bracken with seasoning sauce respectively.

4. Panfry egg for yellow/white egg garnish, shred it into 5 cm-long and 0.3 cm-wide/thick.

◎ Recipe

1. Put the rice and water in the pot, heat it up for 4 min. on high heat. When it boils, continue to boil it for another 4 min. then lower the heat to medium, boil it for 3 min. When the rice become sodden, lower the heat to low, steam for 10 min. to be well-done (1.03 kg).

2. Preheat the frying pan and oil, stir-fry pumpkin on high heat for 30 sec. spread out and cool down (80 g).

3. Preheat the frying pan and oil, stir-fry bellflower roots on medium heat for 5 min. (120 g).

4. Preheat the frying pan and oil, stir-fry beef and bracken respectively on medium heat for 3 min. (beef 80g, bracken 164g).

5. Pour edible oil into the pan, oil fry kelps on medium heat for 10 sec. Crush it into large size.

6. Put the minced beef, green onion, garlic and half of the sesame oil in the pot, stir-fry them on medium heat for 2 min. Add red pepper paste, sugar and sesame oil, stir-fry for 5 min. Add water into it, stir-fry for another 3 min. to make fried red pepper paste (167 g).

7. Serve steamed rice with prepared stuffs and fried red pepper paste on top.

About The Beauty of Korean Food: With 100 Best-Loved Recipes
Korean food has been appraised as a genuine, slow, healthy food for its organization with the seasons and regional specialties, harmony of food ingredients and combination of food groups. In spite of high interest in Korean food by global villagers, there haven't been any good books introducing Korean food with internationally comprehensible recipes. As part of the project "Research and Development Project for Standardization of Korean Cuisine" driven by the Korean government, this book is designed to standardize the recipes of the selected 100 Korean foods by using international system of units (SI unit) and to present the pleasure of cooking healthy Korean food easily for everyone around the world. It also gives useful tips, such as service temperature, total cooking time, suggested utensils, nutritional information for one se
rve, along with specific instructions for preparing ingredients and cooking.

About Dr. Sook-Ja Yoon
As a principal researcher of the Research and Development Project for the Standardization of Korean Cuisine, she has been in the lead to popularize and globalize the Korean food.
She has been extending diverse R&D, lectures and writing books, and also acting as a publicity ambassador for the globalization of Korean food at the various overseas exhibitions.
She has held the Special Exhibition of Korean Royal Court Cuisine during the APEC Korea in 2005 and promoted the 4th Korean Food Festival in UN Headquarters in 2007, won high praises from ambassadors to UN and overseas journals for the beauty and excellence of Korean food. Major works are: "Korean Food," "Traditional Korean Food," "The Store and Fermentation Food of Korea," "Korean Traditional tteok," "Cookies and Beverages," "Good Morning, Kimchi," "Gyuhapchongseo," "The Beauty of Wedding Food" and so on.