Name: Emerald City Music: An Evening with Jinjoo Cho
Start: 2024-04-20T19:30:00
Location: South Puget Sound Community College

Jinjoo Cho

The Washington Center for the Performing Arts

South Korean violinist Jinjoo Cho – first prizewinner of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and Concours musical international de Montrál, Buenos Aires, and more – joins Emerald City Music for a first-ever full length concert for only the solo violin. Three vastly different works bring into vision a “circle of life” narrative, musically bringing together a beginning and an end in the present moment. Beginning with the wandering mysteriousness of Biber’s Passacaglia – one of the world’s oldest surviving solo violin works – the night gives way to Bach’s stately Chaconne; widely considered the greatest work of all time in the violin repertoire. Juri Seo’s Toy Store – a multimedia work dedicated to Jinjoo Cho – is not music for children, but rather a reflective journey through the various experiences of childhood that live on in our minds as adults. Drawing inspiration from punk jazz, John Adams, 19th-century presto movements, and video game music, the first movement, “Jack-in-the-Box,” is a dramatic portrayal of surprise, humor, and obsession as experienced in a child-like mind. The second movement, “Monster Truck”, combines heavy metal and 18th-century Chaconne to create a musical narrative that is at once violent and hilarious. “Mobile,” explores the feelings of comfort and fear associated with falling asleep, as one experiences a taste of death. In the fourth movement, “Roller Skates,” a resolution begins to take shape as the violin and prerecorded track participate in multi-part unison canons. Finally, in the final movement, “Bubbles,” the ethereal soundscape of pizzicati, harmonics, and tremolo evokes lightness and release.