After two superb appearances in 2022, Shiyeon Sung was offered a major role with the APO. We speak to the orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor.
If you look on YouTube, there’s a clip from 1948 of Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting his beloved Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. They’re playing Brahms’ Symphony No.4 in London. The video is grainy, the sound is crackly, the performance is astonishing.
Shiyeon Sung watched that clip and decided on the spot that she wanted to be a conductor.
“The ability [Furtwängler] pulled out, and the energy and musicianship were incredible,” says the APO’s newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor. “I couldn’t move afterwards. I just decided I wanted to go this way.”
That wasn’t the original plan. Shiyeon had mapped out a life as a concert pianist. She was born in Busan, South Korea, in 1975, and began playing piano aged four, later attending a performing arts high school in Seoul.
“I had great lessons and the opportunity to learn the basics,” Shiyeon says. “It led me to consider leading a musical life.”
From high school she flew to Switzerland and the Zurich University of the Arts. It’s a good school – Anne-Sophie Mutter is a past pupil
– but Shiyeon only ever saw it as a stepping stone.
“Berlin University of the Arts was my childhood dream. All the great musicians studied or taught there, so I decided when I was 10 I’d go there. My dream came true.”
Shiyeon joined a list of alumni that includes Claudio Arrau, Kurt Weill, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Paul Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg. Not bad company.