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TABLE OF CONTENTS
identity 5.4 october 2012 identity 5.4 october 2012
10 PERFORMANCESFind out which artists will be performing
in your area.
14 DAY IN THE LIFEFollow around violinist Vanessa Mae as
she goes about her day.
18 OBSERVEREugene Park is a lost talent — what can
we do as a community to help?
24 NEW ON THE SCENEHip hop violinist Lindsey Stirling com-
bines violin, dance, and video games.
36 DIALOGUEQ&A session with eccentric violinist,
Nigel Kennedy.
42 FEATURED ARTIST2Cellos has been gaining popularity by
blending classical and rock music.
100 ONLINE BUZZWhat’s hot in the online community?
We’ll let you know who to watch.
104 TECHNIQUELearn how to play your stringed instru-
ment like a rock star.
110 EDUCATIONLoren Westbrook-Fritts is Strathmore’s
Artist In Residence.
116 REVIEWSWhat did we think about the recent
CD releases?
COVERIllustrated and designed by Deanna Romero
FEATURES
“What I choose to wear or how I choose to express my-
self visually is equally important as the music itself”
THE MANY FACES OF HAHN-BINPAGE 76
50 ANDREW BIRDAndrew Bird is an unusual combination songwriter,
violinist, guitarist, vocalist, and professional whistler.
BY JONATHAN MAHLER
58 THE FINGERSTYLIN’ PRODIGYSungha Jung is a professional acoustic fingerstle gui-
tarist, and only 15 years old.
BY MATTHEW TSANG
65 ARTHUR RUSSELLArthur Russell died 20 years ago. Celebrate the great
composer and performer’s life.
BY NIALL O’CONGHAILE
76 THE MANY FACES OF HAHN-BINHAHN-BIN straddles the line between classical music
and avant-garde fashion.
BY ALEX HAWGOOD
84 FUSE The electric violinist duo pushes the boundaries of
technique and sounds of the electric violin.
BY GEORGINA LITTLEJOHN
93 J.S. BACH, REINTERPRETEDMany classical musicians are reinterpreting Johann
Sebastian Bach’s timeless pieces, with a rock twist.
BY CHEN NAN
DEPARTMENTS
OCTOBER 2012 5.4 identitymag.com
101 East 29th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10016
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EDITOR IN CHIEF Deanna Romero
MANAGING EDITOR Ruth Lozner
ART DIRECTOR Paulina Nguyen
EDITORIAL INTERN Carey Ward
DESIGN INTERNS Michael Cantor,
Megan Doherty, Kelsey Tuck
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Asha Augustine, Christina Bilbrey,
Audra Buck-Coleman,
Matteo Ceschin, April Chaires,
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Ian McDermott, Nicole Page,
James Thorpe, Christa Ursini
SUBSCRIBERSSend subscription orders and inquiries to
IdentityP.O. Box 555081
New York, NT 10016identitymag.com / 212-555-1400
Identity is published 4 times per year in January, April, July, and October.
Volume 5, Issue 4.
SUBSCRIPTION RATESU.S., $38 for one year, $76 for two years;
outside the U.S., $48 for one year.
PRIVACY PROMISEOccasionally we make portion of our
customer list available to other companies so they may contact you about products
and services that may be of interest to you. If you prefer we withhold your name,
simply send a note to:List Manager, Identity, P.O. Box 555081,
New York, NY 10016.
identity
Photo: P
ella
ea
photo: T
hom
as
Prio
rWhat’s happening to Eugene Park? Some
evidence points to abuse and exploitation
by his agents in Korea. How can we help?
page 18
24
NEW ON THE SCENE
She has been playing the violin for 19 years with a range that extends from classical to rock and roll. She was recently a contestant and quarter-finalist on America’s Got Talent where she be-came known as the ‘Hip Hop Violinist’. What’s next for Lindsey Stirling?
continued on page 26
identity 5.4 october 2012
lindsey stirling
photo: d
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26 identity 5.4 october 2012
At the age of five, after being influenced by the classical music records her father
would play throughout the house, Lindsey Stirling requested the opportunity to
learn and play the violin. After a year of relentless pleading, her parents afforded
her that opportunity despite the family’s financial troubles.
She was classically trained through private lessons and orchestras for twelve years.
But the classical training didn’t stop Lindsey from exploring other genres, and
at the age of 16 she joined a rock band with four friends called Stop On Melvin.
Her creative exploration and experimentation with a wide range of musical genres
has led to online success. Lindsey has created music videos that combine violin
playing, dance, and video game music.
Be sure to check out Lindsey’s videos by scanning the QR codes below, or visiting
our website, identitymag.com, where you can find links to these videos and more
information on Lindsey Stirling.
– DEANNA ROMERO
The Elder SCrolls v: Skyrim medleyOriginal arrangement by Peter Hollens and Lindsey Stirling, based
on the main theme from Skyrim Elder Scrolls, which was composed
by Jeremy Soule. Cinematography by Devin Graham.
Lord of the rings medleyOrginal arrangement by Lindsey Stirling, based on the Lord of the
Rings soundtrack by Howard Shore. Filmed in New Zealand. Cin-
ematography by Devin Graham.
Zelda MedleyOriginal arrangement by Stephen Anderson, based on Zelda video
game songs by Koji Kondo. Cinematography by Devin Graham.
Video edited by Lindsey Stirling and Devin Graham.
photos: d
evin
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36 37
DIALOGUE
identity 5.4 october 2012 identity 5.4 october 2012
nigel kennedyDo you have to practice for as long as it takes
for the music to go into your head to the point
where you don’t have to think about it?
When you prepare well, you’re really living it, and
you’ve thought of it from every angle as far as rhythmic
pacing, or how loud or quiet you’re going to play, or
what responses you might get from the orchestra. Then
you can contribute to actually provoking the orchestra
and doing all the right things. But if you’re thinking
about what you’re doing too consciously, you’re too
worried about yourself, you can’t get a good rapport
with the conductor or the players, and it can’t become
transcendental. Your feet and your head are on the
ground, whereas you need your feet on the ground
and your head in the sky in order to get into that other
realm. That is what kept the music in our minds since
the geezer originally wrote it. If it was pure technical
music, it wouldn’t live and it wouldn’t still be here. It’s
got to come from the heart.
So, would you say, the key is to take the audi-
ence onto another level?
Absolutely. And it’s almost like a communal experience.
It’s like a séance in some ways, and everyone’s zoning
in on the same energy, but if you’re too self-conscious,
you’re going to fuck up that energy. You’ve got to be
aware of everything around you — almost more than
you’re aware of playing it yourself — and then you’re
in a position to do something.
As such a high-profile musician, do you feel like
you are putting yourself on the line every time
you make a record or step on stage?
You know, as a soloist the pressure isn’t as big as it
seems really. I’m not actually frightened of mistakes;
I’ve seen some of the best musicians make them, but
it didn’t detract from the performance. There was one
guy called Vlado Perlemuter who was a phenomenal
authority on Chopin, and he started some mazurka
and he couldn’t remember the fucker. He started it
four times, and eventually he had to walk off and
get the music, but it was still one of the best Chopin
recitals I’ve ever heard.
Do you get very nervous before you go on stage?
Normally about a week before, but on the night I
have to drink about a gallon of tea in order to get
some nerves up for it. If you’re not nervous, then
that’s a really bad sign. You don’t want it to be just
another rehearsal, do you? You want it to have some
special energy.
Do you find your interpretation of the classi-
cal repertoire changes as you get older?
It certainly changes as you’ve got more things either
that you’re doing in your life or are happening to you
in your life. You’ve got another perspective on every-
thing as time goes by, but whether that’s to do with
age or just to do with the fact that you’ve experienced
something, I don’t know.
There’s the stereotype of classical music being
‘upper class’ taste, does that annoy you?
I think it would be a shame if that was still the case.
I hope that things have opened up a bit. I hate the
thought of classical music being locked behind the
doors of a private club. I know there is still a little bit of
that but my career does seem to have the bullshitometer
factor. Anyone who might be a little bit prejudiced
is going to show it against me so I bring the musical
bigots out into the open!
continued on page 39
Nigel Kennedy is the classical music prodigy that made this genre of music popular amongst younger generations with his flamboyant and uplifting style. With a string of albums, his unique style and individual appearance has led to success.
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39identity 5.4 october 2012
How big of an influence would you say both
Menuhin and Grappelli have had on you through-
out your life?
Menuhin had a big influence on me in terms of this
spiritual thing where he could play four notes and it
would be worth 1000 notes played by another violinist.
He was a great role model for me, because he was the
only one playing with people like Ravi Shankar and
Grappelli, and I was also interested in playing other
types of music. Grappelli was absolutely unique. He
wouldn’t practice or do yoga like Yehudi; he’d be
having a spliff and a brandy before a show. I saw two
totally different ways of life, and what they both taught
me by being themselves is that I don’t need to copy
anybody, and that it’s not a good idea to try and be
the second Menuhin or the second Grappelli because
neither of them was trying to be the second anybody.
Which other violinists have had the biggest
influence on your playing?
Isaac Stern was my absolute favorite above anybody,
even Yehudi. Most violinists are only concerned with
playing melody, but this guy knew the whole score of
what the composer had written, and he’d got the whole
architecture in there, just like a great pianist. Another
inspiration was Albert Sammons, because he was
British and he did the best ever interpretation of the
Elgar Violin Concerto. Fritz Kreisler had
a really big influence on me, with
the beautiful warmth of the heart
and the golden sound and
this enjoyment of life.
How important is it to keep learning and to be
continually open to new musical ideas?
As a musician, I think it should be a natural state of
affairs that you’re learning. I don’t think it’s worth it
to self-consciously learn and say, ‘Right, I’ve come
up with something new today,’ but as long as you’ve
got your ears open it’s cool. Quite often, I’m in a
fairly closed state of mind and then I suddenly hear
something that blows my mind away, and I think,
‘Fuck, I’ve got to get a bit of that.’ It’s usually from
other musicians.
– JONATHAN WINGATE
I hate the thought of classical music being locked
behind the doors of a private club.
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42 43
FEATURED ARTIST
identity 5.4 october 2012 identity 5.4 october 2012
2cellos2Cellos, consisting of cellists Luka Sulic and Stjepan
Hauser, are being hailed by critics as the new poster
boys of classical and crossover music.
It all started when, exactly a year ago, they took to
YouTube to show a dueling and impassioned interpre-
tation of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. Their
playing rocks real hard that you can’t help but head-
bang while their cello strings go a-flying. It doesn’t
hurt, too, that these guys, both in their early 20s, are
as attractive as they are talented.
“We uploaded the video January of last year. That was
our first collaboration of that kind. The video just went
viral and got so many views. So many people saw it,
music labels, TV shows, and [big artists like] Elton
John. We basically made a breakthrough,” said Luka.
That video generated more than five million views in
less than three months. A very impressed Sir Elton
John made them guest artists in his European tour last
year. They have also been signed up by the record-
ing label Sony Masterworks and released an album
featuring fresh arrangements and cover versions of
favorite pop-rock songs.
So, what began as a “crazy vision” to combine forces
in an effort to lure music fans to the “great instrument”
they’ve been playing since their childhood gave them
more than what they expected.
The overwhelming response, both online and offline,
may have come as a surprise to the two, but the at-
tention is nothing but rightfully deserved.
In Croatia, Luka and Stjepan are deemed the brightest
young things on the classical stage. Individually, they
have notched awards and accolades in prestigious
competitions even outside their home country, are
mentored by the most esteemed in the field and are
educated in the finest institutions. With their accom-
plished backgrounds, it’s inevitable they often get
compared and pitted against each other.
But rivals, they’re not. It was easy to tell from their
banter on the phone, as they poked fun at each other
in between answers about their music.
“We’re together all the time now so we have to act
like friends,” said Stjepan laughingly, who is a year
older than Luka at 25. “But seriously, we’re really
great friends. We have known each other for a very
long time.”
“We also share the same passion and enthusiasm. It is
interesting that the moment we joined forces, every-
thing just exploded,” added Luka.
And what they’re truly happy about is how people are
taking notice of the unassuming cello, which may not
enjoy the high profile of say, the piano or the violin
in an orchestra. “Which is a pity because it’s the best
instrument,” said Luka. “The range of the cello is so
big, it can play as low as the double bass and as high
as the violin. It has the perfect shape and its sound is
the closest to the human voice.”
By playing pop and rock with the cello only goes to
show that “the cello can do anything and you can play
anything with cello,” according to Stjepan.
If you think classical and pop-rock music make for strange bedfellows, think again. And whatever lines there are, they seem to blur with the talents of the Croatian duo, 2Cellos.
Luka said, “People don’t think of cello as a rock in-
strument really and we want people to know all the
possibilities that the cello can offer. Because in clas-
sical music, you only use cello in only one aspect, in
only one way…the notes written for the cello [are
there] for already 200 years, and there isn’t much
you can change. Whereas in our arrangements, we
can experiment and we can develop new techniques.
There’s a lot of great music — Michael Jackson, Sting,
U2 — it’s all the music we love to listen to before. We
just decided to use our energy and virtuosity and make
all these arrangements.”
Stjepan said that, contrary to common perception
perhaps, just because they’re hardcore classically-
trained musicians doesn’t mean their musical tastes
are confined to that area. “Great music is great music.
It is not defined or constrained by the boundaries of
its genre,” he said.
Among their main musical influences are “the great
classical cellists like Mstislav Rostropovich and the
old Russian masters.”
They are also huge fans of rock greats U2, AC/DC
and other artists who have long-standing careers in
the music business. “I like everyone who manages to
last long like the legends. They deserve respect. They
still perform so well after so many years, and they still
improve and get better,” said Stjepan.
2Cellos is also set to record a new album, which will
showcase more instruments and exciting collabora-
tions with top artists.
– NATHALIE TOMADA
Great music is great music. it is not defined or constrained
by the boundaries of its genre.
photo: a
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50 51Photo: J
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FOR THE UNINITIATED, Andrew Bird
is a brilliant, genre defying multi-instrumentalist from Chi-
cago. Having picked up his first violin at age four, he is now
a virtuoso of the instrument, sometimes playing in classical
mode, at other times plucking it like a guitar.
He has an eccentric stage presence, surrounded by some
bizarre paraphernalia such as huge rotating gramophone
speakers. Most pieces involve the live recording of musical
parts on one or more instruments. These are then looped and
played back for him to accompany with other instruments
such as guitar and glockenspiel — as well as his haunting
vocals and whistling — building layers of sound.
BY JONATHAN MAHLER
andrew bird
52 53Photo: J
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BIRD GREW UP IN the northern suburbs of Chi-
cago. His mother, an artist, had visions of all of
her children playing classical music, but Bird, the
second-youngest of four, was the only one who
took to it. He began violin lessons at age 4, using
the Suzuki method, which stresses learning by ear.
In high school, while Bird’s friends were listening
to the Smiths and the Cure, he was listening to
Mozart’s Requiem. At Northwestern, though, he
began to chafe against his classical training. Bird
resented the conservatory’s self-gratifying ethos,
the prevailing view that the headier the piece of
music the better, even if it alienated the audience.
He wanted to improvise rather than play written
notes. “There is something comforting about going
into a practice room, putting your sheet music on
a stand and playing Bach over and over again,” he
told me. “But at the same time, it’s not demanding
much of you.”
Bird moved to Chicago after graduation. He was
intent on making his living playing the violin, but
he had no desire to audition for classical orchestras.
He cobbled together a modest living performing
anywhere he could — weddings, funerals, Irish pubs,
even a weekend Renaissance fair in Wisconsin.
Musically, Bird remained something of a misfit.
He had lost interest in classical concertos, but he
couldn’t relate to the stark, self-consciously simplistic
sound of the post-punk scene that flourished in
Chicago in the 1990s. Bird turned elsewhere for
inspiration, greedily soaking up
a dizzying array of musical
genres, from Gypsy to ca-
lypso to swing to folk
to the so-called hot
jazz of the Roaring Twenties. “I was on a binge for
four or five years, just devouring everything I could
get my hands on,” he told me.
In his early 20s, Bird got the break that every
aspiring musician hopes for: a young executive at
Rykodisc, Andrea Troolin, dug his demo out of the
slush pile and offered him a record contract. Bird
organized a band — Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire — to
back him, and they drove down to New Orleans to
record their first album, “Thrills,” in five adrenaline-
fueled days. They had a tiny budget, and Bird, who
was obsessed with early American jazz at the time,
insisted that they make the record the old-fashioned
way — with everyone gathered around a single rib-
bon microphone, playing each song until they got it
right, however late into the night they had to work.
None of the Bowl of Fire’s records sold. The band’s
tours became increasingly depressing affairs. “We’d
roll into town, and there would be no posters adver-
tising our show and no radio stations playing our
songs,” Bird told me. “Forty people would show up,
and we’d get paid $500, if we were lucky.”
In the winter of 2002, with his career going nowhere,
Bird decided to change his surroundings. He gave
up his small apartment in the city and moved into a
barn on his family’s farm in rural Illinois. During his
self-imposed exile, Bird went to Chicago one night to
open up for a local folk band at an old Irish dance
hall. The rest of the Bowl of Fire wasn’t available, so
Bird reluctantly agreed to play alone. In addition to
his violin, he brought a looping station that he’d been
fooling around with on the farm. For the first time,
he tried whistling onstage, an act of desperation to
keep the audience entertained. “I was worried they
were all thinking: Where’s the band?” Bird recalls.
The show went surprisingly well, and Bird, encour-
aged by the response, decided to go out on his own.
Within a matter of months, he was recording his
first solo album, “Weather Systems,” and was soon
back out on the road, this time with only his violin
and his looping station. He played as many shows as
he could, often opening for bigger artists like Ani
DiFranco. “They were guerrilla attacks,” Bird says.
“I would play for 30 minutes for 2,000 people, none
of whom knew who I was.”
Bird’s second solo album, “The Mysterious Produc-
tion of Eggs,” released in 2005, garnered critical
praise and became a modest sleeper success as word
of mouth spread. Bird gradually built a following,
while at the same time honing his sound. “In his
first couple of albums, you can hear a lot of his
influences,” says Troolin, who left Rykodisc many
years ago but has continued working with Bird as
his manager. “I think it was a matter of him getting
that out of his system in some ways and figuring out
what an Andrew Bird song sounds like.”
ONE DAY IN CHICAGO, I went with Bird to test out
the new speakers he’ll be using on his “Noble Beast”
tour. He is going to be touring with a full band — a
drummer, a guitarist and a bass player — and he
wanted to make sure his violin wasn’t going to be
drowned out by the rest of the ensemble.
Bird, who plays upward of 200 shows a year, was
in the midst of a rare stretch of uninterrupted
down time at home. His tours are exhausting. The
shows are physically demanding, the rhythm of
performing emotionally destabilizing. “There’s this
huge outpouring of energy, and if you’re lucky a
catharsis, but then there’s this big gaping hole when
you’re done,” he told me.
But slowing down and re-entering reality was proving
to be even more difficult for him. Bird is something
of a loner. When he’s not on tour, he spends much of
his time by himself in the barn on his family’s farm,
where he does most of his writing and composing.
Being back home, bumping into old friends whom
he hadn’t talked to in months, was reminding him
of what he gave up to play music. He was feeling, as
he put it, “a little bit like a ghost in my own town.”
In conversation, Bird is earnest and soft-spoken, so
it was more than a little startling when he suddenly
and almost violently thrust his bow across his violin
a few times, producing what could have been the
opening of a Mozart composition. “The first notes
I still play when I start a sound check are classical,”
he said. “Those are my roots.”
Compositionally, Bird takes simple melodies and
gradually extends them into complex arrangements.
These melodies pop into his head unannounced.
The way it usually works, he will suddenly find
himself whistling a new one — Bird is constantly
whistling — or even chewing his food to it. He never
records melodies or even writes them down. He
assumes that if they’re worth remembering, he’ll
remember them. The longer they remain lodged in
his head, the more likely it is that they will eventu-
ally be fashioned into a song. “It’s like I’m my own
Top 40 radio station, playing the things that get
under my skin,” Bird says. “The ones that really
stick are the hits.”
Bird’s approach to songwriting is similarly intuitive
and impressionistic. Often, a word or phrase will
catch his eye for no apparent reason. Or he might
hear a sound — the creaking of a door, the wailing
of an infant — or experience a feeling that he’ll want
to match to words. He is more interested in how the
words in his lyrics sound, in the mood they create
and sense they relate, than in their literal meaning.
Bird is essentially inverting the typical songwriting
process. The classic singer-songwriter sits down
with a notebook to write a song about something.
Bird assembles his songs out of his mental collection
of resonant words and phrases. So even when the
subject of a song is conventional, the lyrics aren’t.
Recording is a miserable process for Bird. He frets
about sounding too careful, about not being at his
best without an audience to engage and impress.
To preserve a sense of spontaneity, he never goes
into the studio with finished songs. He eats lunch
standing up and works 15 hours a day — “until I’m
just stupid and in a daze” — so that he won’t have
time to question everything he’s doing. He produces
his own albums and is often displeased with what he
hears; he twice scrapped “The Mysterious Production
of Eggs” in its entirety.
Bird approached “Noble Beast” differently. He was
determined not to labor endlessly over it, beginning
the studio work last spring in Nashville and finishing
it this fall in Chicago. Bird’s ambitions and talents
can send him in a lot of different directions. His last
album, “Armchair Apocrypha,” is “erratic and ec-
static,” as Bird puts it. On “Noble Beast,” he worked
hard not to let himself get carried away, to keep his
songs simple and direct. He wanted the record to be
characterized not by the countless peaks and valleys
of his live perform ances but by a single, unifying
palette. Having spent much of his career deliberately
avoiding repetition, Bird cautiously embraced it on
“Noble Beast.” The result is a focused record with a
couple of genuinely catchy pop songs.
Bird’s trajectory, his gradual climb to success, is
unusual for a business in which careers tend to be
made on the back of a big break. But his increasing
popularity may also say something broader about
the shifting dynamics of the industry. The rock-music
business has long been dominated by major labels
following a simple formula: They saw what bands
were selling and looked for others that sounded just
like them. And because these same labels held what
often seemed like exclusive access to the key retail-
ers and influential radio stations, it was difficult for
independent record companies and more inventive,
esoteric artists to find traction in the general public.
But with the precipitous drop in record sales, the
major labels have lost much of their leverage, and
with it, their ability to determine what records will
become popular. “Andrew is worried that if he goes
too mainstream, he’s going to offend his hard-core
fans,” says Steve Martin, one of Bird’s publicists. “I
told him that mainstream no longer exists.”
As the sun was setting, Bird improvised a song based
on a melody that had been in his head for a couple
of weeks. He began by plucking out a rhythm on his
violin. Once he had started the melody looping, he
set the violin on his shoulder and started scraping the
bow across the strings, his eyes squinting shut as he
entered the thrall of the music. He tapped the foot
pedal once more and delivered a sustained, almost
eerie whistle into a small microphone wedged into
the tailbone of his violin. The room gradually filled
with sound as he constructed a song, bit by 15-second
bit. Then, with one more click of the pedal, silence
was suddenly restored. Bird opened
his eyes. “I can gratify myself for
hours with this setup,”
he said.
76 77
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78
AHN-BIN (who uses only his
first name) slunk across the
stage with his instrument,
propped himself atop a pi-
ano and whipped his bow
toward the crowd, more ringmaster than
concertmaster. He then tore into works by
Chopin, Pablo de Sarasate and Debussy, with
some enhancements: At one point the pia-
nist John Blacklow placed HAHN-BIN’s bow
into the violinist’s mouth, while HAHN-BIN
plucked his violin like a ukulele.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” one
female audience member whispered to a
friend of hers.
“No,” the friend replied. “I’ve never heard
anything like it, either.”
Despite sharing a lease at Lincoln Center, the
classical-music and fashion industries tend to
be mutually exclusive. But for HAHN-BIN, a
22-year-old protégé of the eminent violinist
Itzhak Perlman, who holds Mozart and War-
hol in equal esteem, they are complementary.
“What I choose to wear or how I choose to
express myself visually is just as important as
the music itself,” he said in a recent interview
at Le Pain Quotidien on Grand Street. “Fash-
ion teaches spiritual lessons. It has taught
me who I am and showed me what I didn’t
know about myself.”
HAHN-BIN is a rare bridge between Carnegie
Hall and the Boom Boom Room, where he
performed at a party hosted by V Magazine
during New York Fashion Week. He is the
latest in a series of classic-musical provo-
cateurs who have included the German vir-
tuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter, famous for her
strapless ball gowns; and Nigel Kennedy, a
genre-bending, hard-partying Brit.
“The classical-music world needs to be shak-
en up a little bit,” said Vicki Margulies, art-
ist manager for Young Concert Artists Inc.,
which selected HAHN-BIN to perform at the
Morgan. “And he’s the one to do it.”
HAHN-BIN credits Mr. Perlman and the star
architect Peter Marino, who financed his New
York concert debut in 2009 at Zankel Hall,
part of Carnegie Hall, for teaching him how
to straddle two cultural worlds. “The only
person that understood that I was a genre
of my own was Mr. Perlman,” he said. “He
gets that I have always been a performance
artist who sings through the violin.”
In a phone interview, Perlman said: “HAHN-
BIN is an extremely talented violinist who
is very, very individual. He combines music
with drama and a visual element. It’s very
personal to him. When an artist feels it that
personally, the audience does, too.”
When the young violinist HAHN-BIN appeared onstage for a recent matinee at the Morgan Library and Museum, a gasp trickled through the audience, which consisted mostly of silver-haired classical-music enthusi-asts. Clad in a black sleeveless kimono, dark raccoon-eye makeup and a
high mohawk, the soloist resembled an apocalyptic Kewpie doll.
BY ALEX HAWGOOD
identity 5.4 october 2012
H
continued on page 81
Photos: j
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81identity 5.4 october 2012
HAHN-BIN’s diverse group of fans also in-
cludes the fashion personality André Leon
Talley, the art maven Shala Monroque, the
magazine editor Stephen Gan and the gal-
lerist Barbara Gladstone. “In the context
of classically trained musicians, he is quite
startling, as they are hardly given to personal
theater,” Ms. Gladstone said.
He collaborated with the video artist Ryan
McNamara on “Production,” a performance
at the Louis Vuitton store during Fashion’s
Night Out last year, and he walked the run-
way for the designer Elise Overland last Sep-
tember. This month, he performed at the
Stone, an art space in the East Village, in a
show curated by the musicians Lou Reed
and Laurie Anderson; and played soliloquies
inspired by the exhibition “Andy Warhol: Mo-
tion Pictures” at the Museum of Modern Art.
“The movement, his body, his clothes, his
style, his dramaturgy, and, of course, the mu-
sic, form one strong, complex, multilayered
audio-visual image,” said Klaus Biesenbach,
chief curator at large for the museum.
HAHN-BIN said that defying genres in this
manner is an intrinsic part of his personality.
“I have never identified as Asian or American,
boy or girl, classical or pop,” he said.
He was born in Seoul, South Korea; his fam-
ily moved to Los Angeles when he was 10
so he could study at the Colburn School of
Performing Arts. As a teenager, he would tell
his mother he was going there to practice the
violin, then sneak off to see performances by
Ms. Anderson or the avant-garde playwright
Robert Wilson. He moved to New York in
2004 after being accepted into Juilliard,
where he quickly felt like “a strange fruit,” he
said. His classmates didn’t understand why
he studied the work of the musician Björk
and the photographer Nick Knight along with
Kreisler and Dvorak. “They would tease me
endlessly,” he said.
Between classes, he’d shop at downtown
boutiques like Seven New York and Yohji
Yamamoto, then return to class decked out
in Bernhard Willhelm and Martin Margiela.
“Everyone’s jaws would just drop,” he said.
“I fought with the deans constantly about
what I could wear. They finally told me I can
wear something all black. Naturally, I went
onstage wearing a top that had a very deep
V-neck. I will never forget when the orchestra
manager ran to me backstage with a safety
pin in horror.”
HAHN-BIN said that his use of fashion is part
of an attempt to make classical music (“the
new underground genre,” he said) relevant
to a group of young people who may have
been dragged to concerts by their grandpar-
ents. He also posts relentlessly on his Web
site, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. “He
is speaking directly to his generation,” Ms.
Margulies said. “This is his world.”
With these bells and whistles comes the oc-
casional accusation that his persona distracts
from the music. “There are many people
in my field who have tried to tell me what
I should and shouldn’t do with Mozart or
Beethoven, even to this day,” he said.
But Mr. Perlman dismissed any idea that
HAHN-BIN’s self-stylization is gimmickry.
“It’s not like he is following a trend in classi-
cal music right now,” he said. “He is setting
the trend.”
At the Morgan, this trendsetting included
three costume changes from the kimono: a
Karl Lagerfeld-esque tuxedo with an over-
size flower pin; an asymmetrical shirt dress
with an eye mask made from feathers; and a
boxy red blouse with a plunging V-neckline,
accessorized with a pair of Jeremy Scott
sunglasses and thigh-high Rick Owens boots.
“Honestly, to get onstage and balance in my
shoes is a lifetime achievement in of itself,”
HAHN-BIN said. “Dancers have arms to help
find their balance, but one of my arms, you
see, is doing the most ridiculous things with
the violin.”
Photos: j
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