Biography

Praised for his elegance and eloquence, Djong Victorin Yu has been an active conductor both in the West and the East for nearly three decades. His concerts and recordings have won him admirers around the world. Reviewing Yu’s début recording with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, Bill Newman wrote in the CD Review, “His Mussorgsky Pictures reminds me of the young Karajan of the 1950’s . . . stunning. . . marvellous.” Mr. Yu’s career has been marked by a series of firsts and ground-breaking achievements.

As a cultural ambassador, maestro Yu was the first South Korean conductor to perform in Eastern Europe prior to the lifting of the Iron Curtain. He was invited to conduct concerts in Budapest and Seoul in celebration of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Hungary and Korea. These culminated in the historic 1991 New Year’s Concerts at Zeneacadémia and Vigadó.

Thus began his musical journey in Hungary which led him to the Kharkov Philharmonic in Ukraine and the “Artur Rubinstein” Philharmonic in Poland. More recently, maestro Yu was invited to be guest conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic in Yerevan in 2009 and 2011. In 2013, he led the Armenian Philharmonic in the premiere of his edition of Bruckner’s Third Symphony, the fruit of more than thirty years’ labor, to a standing ovation.

A versatile musician, as comfortable with symphonic and chamber music as with opera and oratorio, Yu conducted Massenet’s Manon in Seoul in 1989, followed by the Korean premieres of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole and Barab’s A Game of Chance. Maestro Yu’s conducting career has not been limited to the stage and recordings. His work has been featured on TV concert broadcasts and documentaries spanning almost three decades. His masterful performances of Verdi’s Requiem on KBS, Korea’s state television network, attracted international attention, leading him to London.

In 1993 he first conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra, making his London debut at the Royal Festival Hall with the Philharmonia the following year. Thereafter, he regularly conducted the Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall and gave memorable performances with the orchestra at the summer festivals at Chichester and Aldeburgh. His stunning performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Chichester Festivities in 1995 earned him a reengagement the following summer, to the delight of an appreciative audience. In 1997 at the Royal Festival Hall, he gave the world premiere of The Selfish Giant, which the composer Jay Reise dedicated to maestro Yu and the Philharmonia. During this same concert, Yu led the first London performance of Howard Blake’s Violin Concerto Leeds.

Yu has made fourteen CDs with the Philharmonia Orchestra, which have earned wide acclaim as the best recording for many challenging works. Reviewing Yu’s Saint-Saens album, Marc Rochester of Gramophone wrote, “This is a recording which not only deserves repeated listening but positively demands it.” In Tune’s Heuwell Tircuit commented on the “inspired performance of passionate subtlety second to none . . . Highest possible recommendation!” Hi-Fi News proclaimed: “Fabulous . . . You can’t get better than this.” His recording of Holst’s Planets received an equally enthusiastic review in Gramophone Japan: “For sheer effective concept, sensationally played, you will not come across a finer version.” Of his recording of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra CD, Christopher Howell wrote: “recommended with every confidence.”

Yu’s European successes led him East. In 1991, he conducted his first concert in Tokyo as a part of an 18-concert tour in Japan. In 1999, he made his first appearance at the new Opera House in Osaka. In recent years, Exton’s HDCD and SACD releases of his recordings have an avid following in Japan. The success of Yu’s 2009 concert tour in Japan was attested by the enthusiastic response of the Japanese audience.

In Korea, he has devoted his musical passion to rejuvenating provincial orchestras. He served as Principal Conductor of the Ulsan Symphony Orchestra, and most recently as Principal Conductor of the Pohang Symphony Orchestra. During this period he conducted scores of Korean and Asian premieres. As part of the cultural program for the i988 Seoul Olympics, he conducted several major Korean premieres and composed the Olympian March for the occasion.

Throughout his career chamber groups have sought him out for his nuanced interpretations and authenticity. He has served as principal guest conductor for the Hungarian Virtuosi, music director of the Camerata Coreana, and music director of the Camerata Luce starting 2012.

Yu has been closely associated with two Oscar-winning composers: Miklós Rózsa (best known for his Ben-Hur score) and Malcolm Arnold (of The Bridge on the River Kwai fame). A personal acquaintance of both, Yu had the honor of presenting first performances of their works in Korea and abroad. In early 2012, Yu conducted, for the first time outside the U.K., the complete ballet music to Arnold’s Sweeney Todd, fulfilling a promise made to the composer some years before. The concert was broadcast on Korean national TV.

In addition to his conducting, Mr. Yu is a composer, musical historian, restorer and arranger, who has a number of well-known works to his credit. He studied composition at the University of Pennsylvania with George Crumb, Jay Reise, and George Rochberg. His conducting studies commenced with Roger Nierenberg in New York. Yu went on to study conducting for nine years with Vakhtang Jordania, a protégé of Yevgeny Mravinsky, thereby continuing the great tradition of the St. Petersburg School of conducting. Yu is known for his command of the Scandinavian romantic repertoire, such as Swedish composers Atterberg and Rangstrom, and his masterful interpretations of Rachmaninoff’s orchestral and choral works, many of which he has conducted and recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Yu’s composition, Tano, a Korean Rhapsody, received its world premiere in the United States and was given its European premiere at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1994 by Yu and the Philharmonia Orchestra. An encore performance of Tano was given in 1997, again at the Royal Festival Hall. It has since been recorded with the Philharmonia and is awaiting release.

In 2005, Yu surprised the music world with his own orchestration of the two Chopin Piano Concertos which he presented for the first time with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at the Esplanade. The objective was to bring the orchestral sound as close as possible to Chopin’s original intention following the conventions of the composer’s time. Yu’s orchestral arrangements, which number in hundreds, range from baroque to modern popular music. His version of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence can be heard in the recording he made with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

In his leisure time, Yu devotes his energy and passion as a black belt to various martial arts.

In 1986, American critic Margery Leonard concluded her review of one of Yu’s concerts by predicting his future: “Yu’s father, Dr. Chin-O Yu, framer of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, novelist, educator, politician and an important elder statesman there, may just one day be ‘upstaged’ by his son, whose might is wielded in a small baton.”