Guest Artist Young Llerena, piano recital

An evening of masterworks by Beethoven, Chopin, and Debussy.

Young Kwon Llerena started her piano training at age five and won the International Youth Music Competition in Seoul, South Korea at 8. She started early with her collaborating work at school and church at 10 and since then she has performed solo recitals and collaborated with a wide range of artists and ensembles with her virtuosic technique and sensitive touch and continues to maintain as a recitalist, chamber musician, collaborator and church pianist/organist.

She has privately studied with many renowned teachers, concert pianists, college professors in South Korea including Jin Woo Jung, Su Jung Shin, Myoung Sun Kye, Jae Mi Kim, Kyoung Hee Ahn, Jong Pil Lim, Kyoung Rok Park and she graduated with BA in piano performance at Chugye University for the Arts in Seoul, South Korea and during the college year, she privately studied in Detmold and Berlin Universities in Germany.

She received MM and DMA in Church Music and Piano Performance at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. She taught as a teaching assistant and collaborated with faculty, students and the guest artists as a staff accompanist and accompanied 300-member Master Chorale for their Lincoln Center debut concert in New York.

She received the Wayne Polly McNeely Piano Award, James McKinney Outstanding Performer Award, Academic Achievement Awards for both her master’s and doctoral degrees and Melba Justice International Student Award and was invited to perform with Fort Worth Symphony for annual Southwestern gala with her professor, Dr. Robert Smith.

She taught as an adjunct piano professor and a director of Music Academy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She has performed solo in the US, Canada, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India and was invited to teach masterclass and conduct pedagogy seminars.

She debuted a solo recital at Carnegie Hall in 2016. She was honored with a Teaching Recognition Award from the National Music Conservatory of Music in Mexico City in 2017. She has frequently adjudicated for local and international piano competitions and festivals including the 2021 Singapore International Piano Competition and 2021 Hong Kong International Youth Arts Festival and more recently 2022 Jack Hendrix and 2022 M. A. Knox Piano Competition in West Texas. In January 2022, she started her current post at University of Texas Permian Basin as a director/adjunct professor of Keyboard Studies and she is an active member of MTNA, TMEA, MTA, OMTA and actively teaches and performs in the US and abroad.

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (Pathétique Sonata)  – Ludwig van Beethoven

 I.  Grave – Allegro di molto e con brio

      II.  Adagio cantabile

     III.  Rondo: Allegro

Piano sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (Moonlight Sonata) – Ludwig van Beethoven

      I.   Adagio sostenuto

     II.   Allegretto

    III.  Presto agitato

Clair de lune – Claude Debussy

Rêverie – Claude Debussy

Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 31 – Frédéric Chopin