Marimba Superstar Ji Su Jung Champions Puts Concerto
David Lewellen
PUBLISHED
Tagged Under: 2024.25 Season, Classics, Guest Artist, Marimba
As an aspiring young marimba player, Ji Su Jung did not have many role models.
“If you play violin or piano, you know as a child that you can grow up to be a soloist,” Jung said recently, before visiting Milwaukee to perform Kevin Puts’s Marimba Concerto on April 4-5 on a program that also includes works by Beethoven and Copland. “I wish that I had known it was possible. But if I can be the one that helps future generations have more freedom to choose repertoire, that’s beautiful.”
In addition to maintaining a busy concert schedule, Jung teaches at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, and she is happy to set an example for her students. “I love the idea of many more people doing what I do,” she said.
Jung did not commission or premiere the Puts concerto, which was written in 1997, but she has championed it in recent years and recorded it with the Baltimore Symphony. “It wasn’t written for me,” she said, “but it feels like my own piece, my own baby. This piece fulfills my Romantic side. Every time I perform it and listen to the orchestra behind me, it’s probably one of the most beautiful pieces I could play.”
After a recent concert with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, conductor JoAnn Falletta (previously the MSO’s assistant conductor) said that Jung’s performance of the Puts concerto was “filled with breathtaking virtuosity but also beautifully shaped, with extraordinary color and nuance.”
Jung began playing the marimba at age three in her native South Korea, shortly after she started piano. She also studied various other instruments along the way, including the rest of the percussion section. In fact, even now she says that her “second passion” is playing timpani in an orchestra, although she rarely gets the chance.
The marimba is part of the large family of mallet keyboard instruments. It is not electric, but tubes underneath help to amplify the sound, and the keys are made of rosewood. The instrument cannot be tuned, which means that constant temperature and humidity are very important. “It’s pretty delicate, but it’s durable at the same time,” Jung said.
Like a pianist, Jung does not travel with her own instrument — she will play one that the MSO owns. She already knows that it was made by Adams, the company that she endorses, but in Milwaukee, like any orchestra she visits, she will need some time to practice alone and get used to this particular instrument. “I have to be fast at adjusting,” she said.
Although she says she loves all the mallet instruments, the marimba feels like the best musical fit for Jung. “It’s way more physical,” she said. “The sound is created by air, by vibrating metal.”
The instrument’s origins trace to Africa, but the modern form (and the accompanying repertoire) go back only about 60 years. “I love discovering pieces like Kevin’s,” Jung said, but she is also commissioning new marimba works by composers she knows and admires.
Before composers start working, she said, “I make sure they understand the instrument first.” She loves the warm, round quality of the sound — and although she can certainly play fast technical passages, she really loves being slow and expressive. “I want to take time to breathe, so the instrument has time to breathe with me,” she said.
However, the marimba also lends itself readily to transcriptions and arrangements, she said. “It’s really adaptable, like the cello, or the guitar, or I think, also like the human voice.”