PYEONGCHANG, Gangwon Province -- The Pyeongchang Music Festival & School is still going strong in its 13th year, with its annual classical music festivities kicking off on July 12 under the theme “The Immortal Classics: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Beyond.”

It was formerly known as the Great Mountains Music Festival.

Organized by classical music stars cellist Chung Myung-wha and violinist Chung Kyung-wha, this year’s event invited top musicians from around to world to perform, while acclaimed artists take the reins of the master classes for budding local musicians to learn from some of the best.

Among distinguished mentors this year is the internationally hailed cellist Hans Jorgen Jensen. A professor at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, Jensen has a long list of honors, including being named Outstanding Studio Teacher of the Year by the Illinois chapter of the American String Teachers Association and being granted a U.S. Presidential Scholar Teacher Recognition Award by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Danish cellist has also performed as a soloist alongside the Copenhagen Symphony, Danish Radio Orchestra, Irish Radio Orchestra and Basel Symphony Orchestra. He is a recipient of the Jacob Gades Prize and Copenhagen Music Critics Prize of Honor.

On Tuesday, a number of students had the opportunity to perform in front of Jensen during his master class, during which he doled out invaluable one-on-one advice to students and classical music enthusiast.

“These Korean kids are phenomenal. ... I have many Korean students in America and their work ethic is just extraordinary,” said Jensen during an interview with The Korea Herald at the Alpensia Resort’s Convention Center on Tuesday after his class. 

“One of the most important things I try to teach my students is learning the fundamentals,” he added. “I would normally spend two years with my students just focusing on the technical and fundamental parts of the cello before even going on to musicality. But obviously with these short master classes, I don’t have that freedom so what I tried to do here is help these young students focus on one area that I found to be their biggest weakness.”

Jenson said that one of the biggest factors contributing to Korea’s boom in high-quality and competition-winning classical musicians is the meshing of Korean and Western cultures.

“Korea has been very open to the West, a lot of their musicians have studied overseas in Europe, U.S. or Russia, and then they come back to Korea. So I think these students are combining what is best from Korea and what is best from out there in the world,” said the cellist. “They know how to put these cultures together and reach a very high level (musically).”

Tuesday night also marked the music fest’s staging of its sixth Distinguished Artists Series concert performance at the Alpensia Concert Hall.

The night saw a wide range of classical performances including a duo collaboration by Korean pianist Kim Da-sol and oboist Alexei Ogrintchouk of Russia, the Novus Quartet brought life to Bartok and an avant-garde repertoire featured Michinori Bunya on the double bass, Fuyuka Kusa on the piano and mime artist Guerassim Dichliev. 

The Distinguished Artists Series concluded with an international collaboration performance by violinist Mihaela Martin, violist Nobuko Imai, cellist Frans Helmerson and Norman Krieger on the piano playing Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major. 

The Pyeongchang Music Festival & School continues until Aug. 9 with upcoming performances by violinist Maxim Ryanov, pianist Son Yeol-eum, cellist Jian Wang and others.

Concert tickets range from 75,000 won ($67) to 250,000 won and can be booked online at www.gmmfs.com, www.clubbalcony.com, or ticket.interpark.com. For more information on the festival, call (033) 240-1360.

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)