Allison Edberg and Friends to perform Wednesday at Gobin

Monday, June 25, 2012
Allison Edberg

Allison Edberg, the former Greencastle resident whom the Washington Post recently praised as a "gifted violinist," will perform in a free concert Wednesday evening at Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church.

She will be joined by award-winning pianist Hannah Lee, who recently performed in Carnegie Hall, and cellist Yeon-Ji Yun.

It's all part of the Greencastle Summer Music Festival, which presents free concerts every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. through Aug. 15, including a pre-fireworks event on July 4 with a sing-along of American folk and patriotic songs.

Wednesday's concert features the jazz and tango-influenced "Theme and Variation on Für Elise" by KyungA Ahn, and " Trio in B Major, Opus 8," by Johannes Brahms.

Eric Edberg, the DePauw University music professor who is the festival's founder and director, says this concert represents an interesting variation on the festival's theme of "friends making music for friends, old and new."

"This week we have three women, performing music by a woman, that was written in celebration of women," he said.

The three performers are enthusiastic about Ahn's composition, which is based on an excerpt of the famous Beethoven melody Für Elise.

The composer writes,

Yeon-Ji Yun

"This piece was originally written for The 3 Beats Trio, who are active in Indy. We were celebrating Women's Month and they wanted to have something that is related to women and written by women. I knew that a lot of people including non- musicians will recognize the beginning of the piece immediately, since it is so popular."

KyungA (Caroline), born in Seoul, Korea, holds degrees from Indiana University, Eastman School of Music and Yonsei University. Her compositions include orchestral, chamber and theatrical works that have been widely performed in the U.S., Europe and South Korea by various performer groups.

Noted for the beauty of her playing as well as for her versatility, violinist Allison Guest Edberg is one of the pre-eminent performers of baroque and modern violin. She has been praised by The Chicago Sun Times as "impeccable, with unerring intonation and an austere beauty."

Equally at home as an orchestral and chamber musician, she also performs regularly as a violist.

Pianist Hannah Lee recently appeared at New York's Carnegie Hall as the first-place winner of the American Protégé International Competition, just one of the many contests she's won, including the Music World Competition and Teenagers Competition and the Seoul National University Concerto Competition.

An international performer, she has made numerous appearances at the Music Academy of Moulin D'Ande in France as well as in Korea and the U.S. A native of Korea, she has played since she was three, receiving formal training at Seoul Arts High School, Seoul National University and the Eastman School of Music.

Hannah Lee

Cellist Yeon-Ji Yun is a soloist, chamber musician and an international competition winner, including Paganini special mention from the Ibla World Competition in Italy and honorary mention from the Liszt-Garrison International Competition in the U.S.

She taught at DePauw and Indiana Wesleyan University as an adjunct faculty and is a newly appointed assistant professor at Colorado Mesa University, starting in August.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: