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Korea Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Sibelius winner Park Sueye on new milestone in distinctive career
25-year-old takes home first prize at 13th International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition At just 25, violinist Park Sueye has already forged a distinctive path in the classical music world, having released five albums since her debut at age 16 in 2017. On Friday, she made headlines by winning the 13th International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition -- becoming the third Korean to win the prestigious prize after Yang In-mo in 2022 and Korean American violinist Christel Lee in 2015. Founded in 1965 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius' birth, the Helsinki-based competition is typically held every five years and is widely regarded as one of the most challenging and respected violin competitions in the world. Past winners include legendary figures such as Viktoria Mullova, Leonidas Kavakos and Sergey Khachatryan. In a phone interview with The Korea Herald on Friday as she departed for Greece, Park reflected on the experience with quiet composure. 'I did not have any expectations -- not to mention winning the first prize. I just focused on my music and wanted to leave the stage without regrets,' she said. 'This time, I really felt almost no stress and just enjoyed being on stage. The program was difficult, but I had built a strong routine and trained a lot leading up to the competition.' While the Sibelius win is her first major international competition victory, Park has already carved out an identity through her discography and artistic choices. Her debut recording, Paganini: 24 Caprices, was released in November 2017 when she was just 16. Her sixth album, a solo violin recording titled "Exil!," is set for release in July via BIS Records. It features Bartok's Sonata for Solo Violin, selections from Ysaye's Six Sonatas and other technically demanding works. Why enter a competition now, after already having established herself through recordings? 'I knew there were other chances and I thought I'd give it a try before it was too late,' she said. 'This was my first competition since the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition three years ago -- and I don't plan on entering another.' Despite the win, Park emphasized that her artistic direction remains unchanged. 'Even though I've just won a competition, I plan to keep going as I've been doing - -just steadily believing in myself, as I have for the past few years,' she said. 'I'll continue releasing albums and performing, just as I've always done. I want to stay honest with myself and move forward as a truly sincere musician.' Forty violinists participated in the 13th International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition. Following the first and second rounds held from May 19 to May 25, six finalists, including Park, were selected. For the final round, Park performed Oliver Knussen's Violin Concerto Op. 30 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Her prize includes 30,000 euros ($34,000) in cash, upcoming engagements with Finland's top orchestras, mentorship under violinist Pekka Kuusisto and conductor-violinist John Storgards and a one-year loan of the 1777 Guadagnini violin 'ex Sasson,' facilitated by Beare's International Violin Society. Second prize was awarded to Minami Yoshida from Japan and third prize to Claire Wells from the United States. This year's jury consisted of seven violinists, including Korea's own Lee Sung-ju and Cho Jin-joo, who served as a Kumho Art Hall artist-in-residence in 2015.
Eater
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Eater
This French Bistro Couldn't Exist Anywhere Else But Austin, Texas
Underdog, a buzzy Korean American wine bar and bottleshop in Bouldin Creek, was a beloved part of the Austin dining scene before its closing in March. But married couple Claudia Lee and Richard Hargreave had other plans for the space. Now, in its place, a new neighborhood restaurant is taking shape. Le Calamar, a French bistro reimagined through a Texas lens, opened on Thursday, May 29, offering a menu that's rooted in classic French cooking techniques and driven by Gulf seafood, Texan produce, and global spices. Leading the kitchen is chef Casey Wall, a North Carolina native who's spent the last decade making waves in the culinary scene. He's worked in kitchens around the world, including New York's Le Cirque and the Spotted Pig under the tutelage of chef April Bloomfield, and, most recently, Australia, where he opened his first restaurant, the now-closed Rockwell and Sons in Melbourne and worked at Bar Liberty and Above Board, which was named one of the World's 50 Best Bars. After 15 years living in Australia and forging a friendship with Hargreave for almost as long, Wall decided to move back to the States. Hargreave pitched Wall on opening a new restaurant with him in Texas, and, following five visits to Austin within 18 months, Wall made the decision to move. 'I just fell in love with this city, what a lot of the chefs are doing here, the produce, the approach to food, and I want to throw my hat in the ring and celebrate that,' Wall says. The timeline to opening Le Calamar has been tight. Hargreave and Wall began talking about collaborating in 2024 and decided on a theme for the restaurant just before the New Year. Underdog closed in March, and Wall moved to Austin just a month later. 'Underdog was a great space and viable, and it was a good restaurant, but it was not something I could execute from my skillset,' Wall says, noting that Underdog was synonymous with Korean American cuisine. After operating the restaurant for a little over a year, both Lee and Hargreave decided that the wine bar 'revealed its true potential as a neighborhood restaurant': 'We knew we needed to wait for the right creative partner to execute the vision,' Lee said in a statement, and after finding Wall, Lee and Hargreave moved forward with the idea but as a full-service restaurant. The team made a 'clean break,' implementing new critereon: French cooking techniques serve as a base, spices are sourced from around the world, seafood procured mostly from dayboat catches from the Gulf, and produce and meat sourced from around Texas to create what Hargreave calls a 'living, breathing menu' with around half of its dishes based on 'whatever's available and whatever we're into right now.' 'It's kind of like if Texas were a region of France, or if a French chef moved here before modern society [made everything accessible],' Wall says. Now, the only remaining nod to Underdog is Le Calamar's name, the French word for 'squid,' which is an allusion to Hargreave's dog (Squid also served as the mascot for Underdog). Dishes at Le Calamar include steaks cooked over charcoal; oysters Charentaise paired with homemade Texas hot links; grilled trout made with an almondine sauce fused with salsa macha; Carolina Gold rice with Gulf shrimp and blue crab; and a Lone Star State take on Baked Alaska, appropriately called Baked Texas, that incorporates pecan, banana, and local honey. Le Calamar plans to eventually roll out lunch, what Hargreave says is a more streamlined version of dinner: think a classic French dip sandwich inspired by some of the team's favorite birria spots. The beverages aim to be just as dynamic, focusing on this Texas French bistro theme. Hargreave uses his sommelier chops to curate Le Calamar's wine list, highlighting varieties from small, independent wineries and growers from France, Mexico, and Texas, many of whom are focused on sustainable practices. A majority of the spirits, he says, come exclusively from Mexico and Texas, with a few from France. Though rooted in French bistro tradition, the space is meant to be versatile and just as well equipped for a multi-course meal as it is for a glass of wine with oysters, Wall explains. The 3,000-square-foot restaurant, which features an intimate dining room and 12-seat bar, has undergone a complete revamp. 'It's more transportive than Underdog,' Hargreave says, noting the transformation of the previously brightly lit space. Inspired by Spaghetti Western movies of the early 1960s, local designer Bruce Curtis of Kissmyart reimagined Le Calamar as dark and moody, with glossy olive walls, stained concrete floors, and a cinematic effect set to a Western-inspired instrumental-only soundtrack. 'It feels very Texan without the 'yeehaw' and longhorns,' says Wall. 'It's familiar, but it's our interpretation of what a Texan restaurant could be.' The restaurant's specific parameters have actually allowed Le Calamar's team more freedom, Wall says. Working with farmers for produce has encouraged them to get inventive with what's available during the season. Working largely with Texan and Mexican businesses for beverages, rather than big brands, helps give voice to smaller distilleries and allows Texas wineries to buy more grapes and take more risks, Hargreave says. Take Le Calamar's nocino, for example — a liqueur traditionally made with green walnuts is reimagined with green pecans for a sip that Hargreave says 'tastes like Texas.' Wall says the approach to Le Calamar has stimulated his 'mental pantry,' a growing knowledge of seasonal produce and a playbook for how to use it. In many ways, Wall says it's a French bistro that could only exist in Texas. 'I think it's going to be a lot of fun,' he says. Trout almondine Le Calamar's preparation of trout almondine, a French classic, best exemplifies the restaurant's approach to food, Wall says. While almondine typically combines brown butter, almonds, parsley, and lemon, Wall makes it a point to make it very Texan, using whatever fish is sourced by dayboats in the Gulf (one day it might be mutton snapper, another day it might be yelloweye snapper), and transforming the almondine into a sauce that incorporates local flavors. Wall clarifies brown butter as the base, then uses a Mexican-style salsa matcha with guajillo chiles, almonds, and cacao nibs for added depth, plus a spike of sherry vinegar. Lemon helps round out the butter-based salsa macha, which is poured over the grilled piece of fish. 'It eats familiar, like almondine and salsa macha, but it's neither,' he says. The chicken wing a la Koffman For many restaurants, chicken wings are some of the easiest items on the menu. Not at Le Calamar. The dish is deceptively simple: Inspired by French chef Pierre Koffman's pig trotter-stuffed chicken mousseline at La Tante Claire in England, Wall debones chicken wings and pipes them with a mousseline made first from a combination of chicken, cream, and egg white, that's later mixed with sweetbreads, onion, and huitlacoche, a corn fungus commonly used in Mexico. Wall then steams the chicken wings in the oven and grills the outer skin with chicken jus, creating a sticky, caramelized exterior. Oysters Charentaise featuring Texas hot links Le Calamar serves a simple and classic French preparation of oyster, pairing ice-cold oysters with hot and spicy sausage. 'It's a play on hot and cold, but also on fatty sausage and that clean, oyster brininess,' he says. The Le Calamar team takes a homemade Texas hotlink, first smoking them on a grill and crisping them over the charcoal before serving them alongside an assortment of raw oysters. That and a glass of wine should be enough to beckon diners in, Wall says, and is an accurate snapshot of what he and Hargreave envision Le Calamar to be. 'We just want it to be that whole gamut of what a restaurant can be, and that dish is really fun,' Wall says. Rissole A classic French bistro dessert gets a Southern touch at Le Calamar. Similar to rice pudding, Wall folds whipped creme fraiche into Harvest Grain Mills rice from Anauhac, Texas (his substitute for his favorite Charleston Gold Rice) to create a light base. He uses local plums to create a preserve, then tops the rissole with crushed pistachios. 'I can see that one lingering on the menu for a while,' Wall says. 'It's a fun little dessert, and very simple.' Baked Texas This Texas spin on the popular dessert, Baked Alaska, uses a pecan dacquoise base made from pecans from Chase Pecan Farm in San Saba, Texas. That's then topped with two domes — the inner dome, honey semifreddo made with honey from Keeper's Harvest in Buda, Texas, and the larger dome, an olive oil parfait made with olive oil from Texas Olive Ranch in Carrizo Springs. Le Calamar is open for dinner from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays and Mondays, from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Thursdays, and from 4 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Daily happy, featuring $10 martinis, $3 St. Elmo Carl's, and a menu of bar snacks and drink specials, is held from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.; its late-night happy hour is held from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Thursdays, and 10 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Sign up for our newsletter.
Los Angeles Times
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
It's 2044 and pink fog is enveloping Los Angeles. Chaos ensues
Mason Daunt said he would pick up the flowers himself. Like Mrs. Dalloway, he spends the day leading up to his big party — in his case a baby shower in Los Angeles — reminiscing and worrying. Unlike Virginia Woolf's titular heroine, though, Mason is distracted from his errands by a billionaire with a penis statue emergency, a session with a wolfman dom in his favorite virtual reality dungeon and, as if that weren't enough, a minor zombie apocalypse. Jonathan Parks-Ramage knows exactly what he's doing in evoking bourgeoisie Clarissa Dalloway's routine in the opening section of his new novel, 'It's Not the End of the World.' Woolf's most famous book is about an upper-class woman's busy day, sure, but it's also about the ways in which she is caged by the very expectations that come with her privilege, and it's counterbalanced by the cultural uneasiness following World War I and the delusions and ultimate suicide of the novel's other main character, PTSD-ridden Septimus Smith. Parks-Ramage takes the idea of a wealthy, sometimes frivolous main character getting ready for a party and dials it up to 11. But then, in an ambitious move that brings a delightful element of camp to the novel, he abandons that relatively safe and simple premise in favor of an exercise in maximalism. Which is to say that his plot goes off the rails — and it works. Over the course of the first third or so of 'It's Not the End of the World,' readers learn about Mason Daunt and his world. It's 2044, Mason is a white gay artist married to Yunho Kim, a formerly successful Korean American screenwriter recently blacklisted after being questioned by the House Anti-American Speech Committee, and the two are having a baby via a surrogate, Astrid. Money is never far from Mason's mind, and he's constantly aware of how much he and Yunho are spending: $10,000 a month for Astrid and her girlfriend Claudia's L.A. rental; $100,000 on the baby shower, including a WeatherMod fee to ensure that the cloud seeding technology company will get rid of the pesky wildfire smoke and leave Mason and Yunho's backyard to bask in L.A.'s promised sunshine. Mason has everything, it seems: a loving and virile husband, a mansion, a closeted gay billionaire buying up his morally vacant art, and the latest iOSCerebrum installed in his brain (which, in order to make the virtual BDSM dungeon he goes to authentic, is 'synced with his state-of-the-art ThrashJacketTM to ensure authentic haptic violence'). What could go wrong? Only everything, of course. As the day's events unfold, interrupted by flashbacks of the 14 months leading up to it, a mysterious pink fog begins to appear around L.A. No one knows what it is, but wherever it descends, people seem to lose their minds. By the time Mason gets home, he's witnessed a brutal amount of violence perpetrated by those who've inhaled the pink fog. Parks-Ramage delights in the gory details, the intestines and missing flesh and dangling jawbones, bringing Mason up close and personal with the ugliness that he is, otherwise, guiltily but only intellectually aware of (Mason's sessions with Vex, his dom, involve being shamed for his wealth and his part in deepening inequality amid worsening climate change). If you've seen 'Sinners,' and enjoyed the campiness of its vampires, you'll have fun with the not-technically-but-functionally zombies Parks-Ramage deploys in this section of the book. Much like the worst kind of gender reveal party, Mason and Yunho's baby shower has consequences. Mason, shockingly still alive following the shower's events, is charged with murder. Yunho, Astrid, her baby and Claudia have all disappeared from Mason's life, although they are, unbeknownst to him, living in one of his mansions in Montana, and have started a utopian anarchist commune with three dozen or so people. Most of the sections that take place on the ranch closely adhere to the perspective of 4-year-old Gabriel, the child of Mason and Yunho's good friends and business partners. At first Gabriel is very happy on the ranch, living with their care pod, but as tensions are ratcheted up with a local militia, they're increasingly exposed to violence and trauma. Parks-Ramage doesn't sugarcoat how bad things could get and, in fact, leans into the absurdities of what the world might look like if climate change continues unabated, American democracy crumbles even further and billionaires meddling in government gain more legitimacy (a basically immortal Peter Thiel turns up in the novel's last section). 'It's Not the End of the World' is a wild ride of a novel. Its ridiculous moments are clearly deliberate, and it's not subtle — but as Mason used to think in college when his classmates critiqued his artwork for being too on the nose, 'Well, the world was on fire so what was the point of being elliptical and academic?' Sometimes you have to laugh so you won't cry — and as is usually the case with camp, there is something true and painful running beneath the humor. In this case, it's the question of children: Why do we have them? Are they our hope for the future or the reason we maintain an illusion of hope? Are they merely a way to give ourselves a pretense of immortality? Parks-Ramage doesn't come to a specific conclusion, and although some of his more righteous characters seem to be firmly on the reproduction-is-immoral side, his depiction of Gabriel's childlike wonder and imagination is tender and loving. It's a good reminder that, no matter how awful or hopeless things get, we can still imagine dragons. Masad, a books and culture critic, is the author of the novel 'All My Mother's Lovers' and the forthcoming novel 'Beings.'
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Former Irvine City Council member charged with perjury, multiple felonies in alleged election fraud
Only a few months ago, former Irvine Vice Mayor Tammy Kim had aspirations of returning to the City Council she previously served on for four years. Now her immediate goal is to fight off charges that could put her in prison for several years. The Orange County district attorney's office announced Thursday afternoon that Kim was charged with 10 felonies tied to allegedly lying about her residency during her City Council tenure and while campaigning for mayor last fall. Kim was formally charged with three felony counts of perjury by declaration, three felony counts of filing a false document, and one felony count each of a public official aiding the illegal casting of votes, of filing false nominations papers, of knowing of the registration of someone not entitled to vote and of voter registration fraud. She was also charged with a misdemeanor of making a false statement. She could spend up to 11 years and two months in state prison and county jail if convicted on all counts. She is scheduled to be arraigned Friday morning. Kim briefly responded to a call from The Times, saying she was advised not to share too much per her attorney, Caroline Hahn. 'We're entering a not guilty plea,' Kim said. Read more: Making history: Three Korean American women, two representing California, win seats in Congress Hahn added that she and her client 'planned to launch a vigorous defense' but did not answer further questions. Kim is accused of using two fraudulent addresses while running for mayor in the November 2024 election and then in a City Council special election in early 2025, according to the criminal complaint. She owned a condo in the city's 3rd District, where she had lived since 2015, according to a separate lawsuit filed against Kim to get her thrown off the City Council ballot. Kim won election to the Irvine City Council in November 2020, receiving nearly 44,000 votes a 14-person, top-three-candidate race. At that time, city elections in Irvine used an at-large voting system, meaning candidates could live anywhere in the city. The city moved to district elections in the fall 2024, requiring council members to live in the districts they represent. Only voters from those districts could vote for those candidates. Kim served until November 2024 when she ran for and ultimately lost a mayoral campaign to Councilmember Larry Agran by a margin of nearly 5,000 votes. The district attorney's office believes Kim improperly used an address to run for mayor, no longer claiming to live in the 3rd District condo she had owned for a decade. To run for mayor, Kim changed her California driver's license and her voter registration to a home in the 5th District, where she never lived, according to the criminal complaint. The home belonged to a family Kim met through a Korean teaching class, the complaint alleges. Kim did not inform the family that she was using their address, according to the complaint. She has been charged with certifying that address as her own under the penalty of perjury. Read more: Column: Are diversifying suburbs like Irvine ready for a conversation about race? Kim eventually finished her campaign and voted in November's mayoral race based out of the 5th Diistrict home. Shortly after her defeat, Kim declared her candidacy in December to fill the now- vacant 5th District seat, which Agran left after winning the mayoral election. Kim eventually found a room in another 5th District home on Jan. 10 and changed her California driver's registration that same day, according to the complaint. She then filed new nomination paperwork with the new 5th District address, according to the complaint. Later that month, former mayoral candidate Ron Scolesdang sued Kim, claiming that she was fraudulently using an incorrect address. Scolesdang had hired a private investigator to monitor Kim, according to that lawsuit. Kim eventually dropped out of the race on Feb. 7, the same day a Superior Court judge removed her name from the ballot. Betty Franco Martinez won the special election. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Sharon Chung is a musician turned politician
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — State Representative Sharon Chung is a multifaceted woman, being an elected official, mom and professional musician. 'Even though I may be Asian American, I think that, I really try to make sure I'm always trying to find common ground with everybody and anybody,' said Chung. In 2018, Chung became the first Asian American elected in McLean County when she won a seat on the county board. In 2022, she made history again when she was elected state representative for the 91st district, becoming the first Korean American elected to the general assembly. 'I started getting involved locally here with politics maybe eight years ago. Just sort of started showing up to different events and rallies and going to my congressmen's office, all those sorts of things,' said Chung. 'And with that, I kind of got to know a lot of people here locally with politics and then some people asked me to run.' Before becoming an elected official, the child of Korean immigrants had a professional career as a violist and violinist. 'I have two degrees in music performance. And I was a performer for many years. I still kind of play every now and then,' Chung said 'I taught lessons, performed in concerts, did all that sort of thing. I even did some arts administrations, did it all as a freelancer. It's still a big part of who I am.' While Chung is talented with many accolades, she loves getting to introduce herself as mom to her two daughters. But it's up in the air if they will follow in their mother's footsteps. 'I think for both of them, I think they see a lot of the things I'm fighting for, a lot of the things I talk about at home. They're interested in them,' said Chung. 'I think maybe they're not as extroverted as I am so maybe they may not see themselves going into politics. But who knows. I honestly never saw myself going into this either, so we'll just see.' And when she's not in Springfield you can find Chung at community events because connecting to people is what's important to her. 'That's really been the most rewarding part. Just being able to meet people every day, being able to talk to them, just to hear their stories, things that matter most to them.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
