Somewhere, there is a photograph of Monica Chung in diapers, sitting on someone’s lap at a piano, looking as if she is about to start performing a piece by Franz Liszt. There’s a reason for that. Not far out of
Somewhere, there is a photograph of Monica Chung in diapers, sitting on someone’s lap at a piano, looking as if she is about to start performing a piece by Franz Liszt. There’s a reason for that.
Not far out of diapers, Chung was a prodigy, performing in her first recital at age 4 (“I don’t remember anything about it except the pink dress,” she recalled a few days ago), a premiere that was just a hint of what was to come. At 11, she made her concert debut as a soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, near where she was born and raised in Jacksonville, N.C.
As a teen, she played venues in Europe and North America, as well as at least seven music festivals, from Spain to Israel. She was accepted to the Mannes School of Music in New York City after attending the Julliard Preparatory School.
Mannes, like Julliard, is one of the nation’s top three music academies, and the training ground for many of today’s ensemble and solo players.
Change gears. If you’ve searched on Kauai for the mellowest and most embracing yoga classes on the island, you have probably at least heard of Metamorphose Yoga Studio in Kilauea. If you have been there, there is a very good chance you’ve walked into the classroom and met Monica Chung.
She also teaches at two other locations, and does a weekly yoga workshop for employees of the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative.
At Metamorphose, in less than two years, Chung has built a loyal following, and impressed the owner of the yoga studio, Carol Dumeyer. Chung, Dumeyer discovered, is not only an exceptional general yoga teacher, she is especially talented when it comes to helping people who have turned to the practice because of injuries or illnesses.
“That is Monica’s big gift,” Dumeyer said.
So if you wonder how Chung got here from being an acclaimed pianist with a strong classical repertoire and a promising future as a concert soloist, you might infer that her life story is one of brilliant success when she was very young, followed by a nightmare of stress and physical ailments that led her to find Kauai. She’d visited as early as 2005, but in 2013 decided to move permanently, joining two older sisters who already lived on island.
This has left one box unchecked. Her piano. It’s a Steinway B, the largest model the company makes, just short of 7 feet long and 5 feet wide and weighing 760 pounds. It has been in Manhattan, where Chung used to live, since she moved to Kauai. A friend has been piano-sitting.
Chung’s relationship with this instrument is intensely personal. When she got it, she was so impoverished that she lived in an apartment in New York that could not accommodate both the piano and a bed. Besides, she couldn’t afford the bed. The piano was a gift from her family. So she slept under it for several months.
Serious musicians bond with their instruments. Violinists and cellists, for example, are only comfortable playing instruments they own or know well. They even name them. Pianists, Chung said, skip the naming, but still bond closely. Obviously, it’s different if you can check your instrument on an airplane.
So since she moved here, Chung has been mastering the logistics of getting the Steinway from Manhattan to Kauai. It has departed New York and its itinerary includes a stop at a crating company that specializes in motorcycles and pianos, then land and sea transportation to Honolulu and, somehow, on to Kauai. Chung doesn’t quite have that part planned yet, but she knows what Young Brothers is.
This will cost many thousand dollars — far more than Chung’s budget can absorb. By the time the piano gets here, it will likely come to about $5,000. Luckily, she has developed a strong following in Kauai’s small classical music community. She is the accompanist for Kauai Voices, a vocal group, and a featured player with Chamber Music Kauai, which puts on a modest calendar of recitals.
Out of necessity, Chung practices her requisite three to five hours a day at three different locations.
So, to get her piano here, Chung will perform at one of the most unusual fundraisers in island history. It is a Nov. 4 concert called “Talk Story Piano with Monica Chung,” from 1 to 3 p.m. at St. Michael and All Angels’ Episcopal Church in Lihue. It is a chamber music program. Details and reservations: www.kauai-concert.org
Long journey
In her teens and early 20s, Chung was on the world stage and, like many young performers, aspired to crack the piano elite — such names as Vladimir Horowitz and Yuga Wang come to mind. People who know her playing and work ethic say she certainly had the potential.
But playing the international festival circuit, Chung had also come to live the reality that competitive pressure on young players is intense and the income stream nearly nonexistent. Chung was only able to survive by taking teaching jobs. Then, at one point — because she learned to cook after her friends with whom she shared meals would not — she ended up as a contestant on season two of the “MasterChef” reality show on Fox Television.
There were also incursions into being a private chef, a runway model and an English-as-a-second-language teacher. Anything to pay the rent and still leave time for four to five hours of practice every day.
Then the physical problems started.
“Stress was the No. 1 thing,” she said. “Things started to break down.”
That led to migraines, “a crazy skin virus,” two detached retinas and even a temporary speech impediment.
“That was crazy making, having to fumble with words,” she recalled.
Justin Kantor, founder and impresario of Le Poisson Rouge, a unique performance space in New York, said “Monica is solid,” but “young performers have to realize that they are on a journey.”
In Chung’s case, he said, “I think there were many factors in play. Family life, self-driven goals. Like any highly competitive field, there is a high percentage of stress and burnout.”
Ronn Yedidia, an Israeli composer and pianist living in New York — the one who has been caring for Chung’s piano — echoed Kantor’s view.
“I have seen very talented people crumple under this type of pressure,” he said, “sometimes ending up in mental institutions and even losing their lives — to everyone’s sorrow.”
Chung’s upbringing was strict. When she was 13, she relocated to New York for school and her mother went with her. It was an inflexible regime.
“I really wasn’t allowed to do anything,” she said. “There was school, competition and travel. It became isolating.”
Finding peace
After the physical and emotional challenges set in, Chung started to realize that something major in her life had to change. She’d first visited Kauai to visit her sisters. In 2013, she decided on permanent relocation.
“In New York, everything kept getting worse,” she said. “But I noticed things turned around every time I came to Kauai.”
Like many, Chung had been drawn into the inner charm of the island.
She sort of fell into yoga. She took her first class in 2006.
“I hated it,” she recalled, “and I didn’t want to learn to like it.”
But she also realized her life had to take another direction.
“Everything else made me want to scream,” she said, “but I decided I had to stick with yoga.”
Dumeyer said it was exactly because Chung had come to yoga comparatively late and had experienced many challenges that she is a successful teacher.
“She came to yoga from injury,” Dumeyer said. “It’s a background that gives her a lot of awareness and empathy. That is Monica’s big gift. In so many ways, the jury is still out on what yoga really is.”
Gradually, Kauai helped Chung come to terms with herself and her challenges.
“I’m happy to be here for a while,” she said. “I have to say I’m pleased with what I’m doing. Right now, I’m happy.”
