Diverging Paths Intersect in Chung Trio

They are now 20 years older than they were when they first toured the United States as three prize-winning young musicians who happened to belong to the same family. But members of the Chung Trio--Korean-born, Seattle-raised and New York-trained--still love playing together, they say.

The problem is getting together. They live in different countries, with the Atlantic Ocean between them.

Still, cellist Myung-Wha Chung, 43; her sister, violinist Kyung-Wha Chung, 40, and their brother, pianist (these days better known as a conductor) Myung-Whun Chung, 35, are managing to tour as an ensemble for a few days this month and next.

Tonight they appear on a Los Angeles Philharmonic-sponsored concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center. They have fit their North American concerts between performances of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” which Myung-Whun is conducting at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

On the phone from Myung-Wha’s Manhattan apartment, the violin-playing and piano-playing Chungs talked about their current reunion. (The cellist was out at the time).

Conductor/pianist Myung-Whun is based in West Germany and Italy, where he is music director and principal conductor of the Radio Orchestra of Saarbrucken and principal guest conductor with the Florence opera. Violinist Kyung-Wha leads her international career from a home in Great Britain; she lives in London with her British husband and their 4-year-old child. Myung-Wha, who lived until recently in Rome near her brother, now lives in New York with her husband and their family.

Kyung-Wha recalled that their first concert as a trio was in 1965. “Then, we toured quite a bit together for several years, beginning in the late 1960s, after we were signed by CAMI (Columbia Artists Management Inc.). But we never wanted to be known as a trio, since we were all pursuing very separate careers.”

“Actually, there were about 10 years after that when we hardly played together at all,” her brother adds, when he takes over the phone.

“We were always in different places, doing different things. Now, we want to get together every year for a tour, and to make at least one recording.

“That’s what we’re doing with the program we’re going to play in Los Angeles--the first and second trios by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky’s A-minor Trio. After the tour, we will record that program for EMI.”

Myung-Whun was for several years associated with the L.A. Philharmonic and the YMF Debut Orchestra here. As a pianist, he was a student of Nadia Reisenberg at the Manhattan School of Music, and over the years has won several international prizes. These days, conducting is his main job. And he does it mostly in Europe.

“Since I decided to live in Europe, I’ve been doing more opera than anything else, though, in five years with the Radio Orchestra of the Saar, I’ve conducted a lot of contemporary music, too.” But, the conductor says, his principal interest these days is opera, particularly Italian opera.

“To perform these works in the country of origin is a great pleasure,” he says. “There is a special atmosphere for Verdi in Italy. We all know that American players are technically superior to others. But the Italians have an understanding of tradition, and an innate feeling for music of their own composers.”

Myung-Wha Chung, the oldest of the three players in the trio, and No. 3 among the seven Chung children, spoke Monday morning from San Jose, Calif. The trio played at Stanford University on Sunday, and were rehearsing for Los Angeles the next morning.

The cellist says she plays 30 concerts a year, which she considers a good balance with her family life; she and her husband, a former journalist who now works for UNICEF, have two daughters.

She is pleased to be on the road with her siblings again, though adding, “as a trio, we are definitely availble again, but only two or three weeks a year.”