Kirk Youth a Suzanne Brenton Award winner

June 2018

The Kirk would like to congratulate Judy Yun on winning the Suzanne Brenton Award at the 2018 Kiwanis PEI Music Festival.

This award was established through an endowment from a former member of the PEI Symphony Orchestra who began to play the cello while in her sixties. The winner is selected from the outstanding soloists during the Music Festival competition, and is awarded the opportunity to perform a concerto or other solo work during a performance of the PEI Symphony Orchestra. Judy will be enjoying her opportunity to perform with the PEI Symphony Orchestra on February 24, 2019, at Zion Presbyterian Church.

Judy is a student at Colonel Gray High School, and travels to Halifax for her violin lessons. The musical selection that won Judy the Suzanne Brenton Award was Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor. This concerto was his last large orchestral work. It forms an important part of the traditional violin repertoire and is one of the most popular and beloved violin concertos in history.

Mendelssohn originally proposed the idea of the violin concerto to Ferdinand David, a close friend and then concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, in 1838, but the work took another six years to complete and was not premiered until 1845. The composition was one of the foremost violin concertos produced during the Romantic era and influenced many other composers.

Judy is keeping her career horizons open at the moment. When she is not studying or playing the violin, she enjoys all kinds of art, including painting and drawing. She is the daughter of Hyeonjung Park and Dongkoo Yun. Her sister, Connie, is also an accomplished violinist. You will have the opportunity to enjoy the pair’s special musicianship during the Kirk’s worship service on August 19, 2018.