Chung-Hoon Peter Chun is the Associate Professor of viola at the University of Kansas, where he has been teaching since 1999, appointed at the age of 28. He is a versatile musician who has given numerous recitals and chamber music performances across the U.S., as well as appeared internationally in Korea and Japan. His recent performances with the renowned Borromeo String Quartet in Busan, Korea were critically acclaimed and broadcast on Korean Broadcasting System. In 2012, he performed a series of recitals and masterclasses in China, visiting universities in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenyang. Summer of 2009 saw him performing and giving a masterclass at the International Viola Congress, in Stellenbosch, South Africa. His performances have also been featured at such universities as Penn State University, where he presented an acclaimed performance at the ViolaFest, University of Connecticut, Southern Illinois University, University of Ulsan in Korea, and the Conservatory of Music at University of Missouri, Kansas City. He has appeared as soloist with Lexington Sinfonietta, Lawrence Chamber Orchestra, and University of Kansas Symphony Orchestra. With the latter, he performed La Llorona, a beautiful, large-scale viola concerto written by Gabriela Frank.
Having served as the Artistic Director of the Kansas City String Quartet Program from 2009 to 2012, Peter Chun has performed and taught at many music festivals and schools, having appeared at Busan International Music Festival (Korea), Killington Music Festival, Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Festival and Yellow Barn Music Festival, as well as the International Musical Arts Institute, in Maine, where he was a resident artist. In addition, he has taught at the Midwestern Music Camp at KU, and is currently a faculty member of the nationally recognized festival Sound Encounters in Ottawa, Kansas.
His other chamber music activities include a tour of Japan as the violist of the New England Chamber Ensemble. His performances as a member of the Tonos String Quartet resulted in a highly acclaimed Seoul début, as well as being featured in Boston’s Celebrity Series through its outreach program, appearing with the acclaimed musician Rob Kapilow. Other musicians he has collaborated with include the artists Peter Wiley, Laurence Lesser, James Buswell, Paula Robison, Diemut Poppen, Hai-Sun Paik, Frank Almond, and the Borromeo String Quartet. His performances have been broadcast numerous times on the KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) radio and television, WGBH radio in Boston, Maine Public Radio and Television, and Kansas Public Radio.
As the violist of Quartet Accorda, a group that was based in Kansas City, Peter Chun performed extensively in Kansas and Missouri—gaining a widespread reputation and reviews, with performances that were frequently broadcast in the region. Quartet Accorda has been the quartet in residence at IMAI, between 1997-2010, and at Park University in Parkville, Missouri between 2005-2010.
Chun’s orchestral activities have included performances at the Tanglewood Music Center (where he was one of the featured members in a documentary on TMC which aired nationally on PBS), the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and the Seoul Festival Orchestra—working extensively with musicians such as Peter Serkin, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Myung-Whun Chung, and members of the Juilliard Quartet, among many others. In addition, he frequently performs with the Kansas City Symphony and Kansas City Chamber Orchestra.
Making his conducting début in 2005, Chun led critically acclaimed performances of Donizetti’s opera L’Elisir d’Amore at LG Arts Center in Seoul, broadcast internationally on the KBS satellite program, followed by a production of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat at University of Kansas.
Born in Seoul, Korea, Peter Chun emigrated at age 12 with his family to the U.S. He was trained at the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Walter Trampler, Marcus Thompson, and Eric Rosenblith.