Dr. Soonsook Myung is a pianist, scholar, and educator who lives in Jamestown, NC. She received her D.M.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2006 and a Master's degree in Piano Performance from the University of Indiana, Bloomington in 2004. Before she came to U.S., she completed her B.M. in Piano Performance from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea in 2001.
Since Dr. Myung believes that performance, teaching, and scholarship are interconnected, she has been engaged in each of these pursuits. As a pianist, she has been active both as a soloist and a collaborative artist. As a soloist, she has focused on romantic and twentieth-century composers such as Robert Schumann, Frederic Chopin, and Sergey Prokofiev. Her repertoire has been enormously influenced by my most recent teacher, Mr. Christopher Taylor, under whose guidance she has studied and performed many contemporary piano works. She has participated in many national competitions in Korea and the US. In addition to many solo performances, she has extensive experience as a collaborative performer and as a choral accompanist. While in Korea, she performed as an accompanist in the Mixed Choir of Seoul National University for four years, and participated in several choral ensembles at Indiana University, Bloomington. Throughout the recitals, she has tried to be engaged with various venues and often found her joy and comfort on the stage. The programs she has performed include, but not limited to Béla Bartók’s Dance Suite, rarely performed by pianists due to its intricate and “un-pianistic” nature – she presented a lecture recital on this to share my study on his piano transcription of his orchestral work, Sergey Prokofiev’s Sonata Op.82, No.6, which highlights its sophisticated fragmented structures, and Franz Liszt’s Sonata in b minor, his finest work for piano and one of the pinnacles of Romantic piano music.
Recently, she began to focus on her career as a soloist. She has three recitals scheduled for upcoming Spring 08. She will travel to upstate NY and PA and have two recitals: one at Holmes Auditorium, Alfred, NY January and the other at Steadman recital Hall, Mansfield, PA February. While staying there, she will make recordings of modern piano pieces with Andrew Deutsch, Associate Professor of Sonic Arts and Video at Expanded Media, Alfred University. Then, she will have a recital at Center for the Arts in University of Wisconsin, Platteville followed by a masterclass given to Piano major students at the Department of Fine Arts, UW-Platteville. Also, her recital at Milwaukee on March and another at Los Angeles during Summer 08 will be scheduled soon. Furthermore, she is in a process to be recognized as a Steinway Artist – she has been discussing this possibility with Mr. Peter Goodrich, Vice President Worldwide, Concert and Artist Activities, Steinway & Sons, and will see him in person near future for the affiliation with the Steinway.
As a teacher, Dr. Myung has diverse experience in applied and group teaching. Her private teaching experience includes elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels of instruction. As a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has taught all class piano levels from beginning to intermediate, designing curriculum, administering placement tests, and submitting grades for each class. As a component of her assistantship, she was responsible for selecting repertoire and establishing a technical regime for secondary pianists. For her pedagogy coursework, she served as an assistant instructor for the introductory piano pedagogy course for undergraduate piano performance majors, assisting with curriculum development, supervising teaching, and course planning. She also designed and taught a keyboard skills course for undergraduate piano performance majors as a required component of the BM degree. Additionally, she has integrated basic MIDI sequencing as a required component of each of my class piano courses since she believes that the knowledge of MIDI for class piano is beneficial and essential.
As a scholar, Dr. Myung has actively participated in extensive musical research. Her presentation proposal on “Concord Sonata by Charles Ives: Performance Manual & Reception for Experimental Music” has been selected and will be presented at the Pacific Central/Pacific Southern SuperRegional Conference (at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, March 14-16, 2008) and the Rocky Mountain/Pacific Northwest SuperRegional Conference (at the University of Montana in Missoula, Missoula, MT, April 10-13, 2008) of the College Music Society. Also, her research on John Thompson’s “Modern Course for the Piano” was accepted at the College Music Society’s 2007 Regional Conferences - Pacific Central Chapter (at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, March 2007). And, she performed a lecture recital entitled “A Study of Béla Bartók’s Dance Suite: Comparison and Analysis of the Piano and Orchestral Versions” at the College Music Society’s 2007 Regional Conferences - Rocky Mountain Chapter at Red Rock Community College, Lakewood, CO, March 2007). Furthermore, she presented a paper entitled “Applications of Gorgy Sandor’s Technical Principles For Intermediate Piano Students” at three different College Music Society’s 2006 Regional Conferences (Pacific Central, Northeast, and Great Lakes Chapters). she believe that research is extremely important to my overall growth as a musician and scholar and that it will ultimately benefit students, colleagues, and community. With the completion of a minor in music theory and history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a significant background in keyboard literature, she has a diverse range of pedagogical abilities and interests that she would enjoy pursuing.
