When and where was your first concert with the MCO?
In Vienna, in early 2006, Mozart’s Zauberflöte with Daniel Harding.

What’s the best thing about playing with the MCO?
The special atmosphere: all of the musicians are always completely engaged and that is particularly motivating for me personally.

What is your most memorable moment with the orchestra?
I often have moments during concerts when I am simply thankful and happy. That I can be here and that music is my life.   

What makes a "perfect" concert?
A concert can never be perfect. But a good concert is for me one that makes sense emotionally, and that spreads something positive through the power of music.

What do you do before a performance?
Because the emotional power of the music is so important to me, I try to feel my way into the piece before the performance. I want to know the piece with my heart, too. I try to bring together the mood of the music with my own personal emotional state.

BIOGRAPHY
Sung-Hyuck Hong was born in 1978 in South Korea, where he began his musical studies. He moved to Europe in 1997, first to study with Prof. Christoph Schmidt at the conservatory in Mannheim and then – as a fellow of the foundation Podium junger Musiker Baden-Württemberg – with Prof. Bozo Paradzik in the soloist class in Freiburg, from which he graduated with honors.

Sung-Hyuck has received numerous distinctions, such as the Stennebrüger Prize from the Carl Flesch Akademie in Baden-Baden and the Sponsor’s Prize of the German Conservatory Competition, as well as honors from the national Dong-A Music Competition in Korea and the Izuminomori Competition in Japan.

He has been a member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra since 2006 and of the hr-Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt since 2011. He also performs with Claudio Abbado’s LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA and as a guest player with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Münchner Kammerorchester, and the Bamberger Symphony among others. He has appeared as a soloist with ensembles such as the Korean Symphony Orchestra in Seoul and the Baden-Baden Philharmonic, as well as at the Schwetzinger and Ascoli Piceno Festivals.

From 1999 to 2002 Sung-Hyuck taught double bass technique at the Conservatory for Music and Performing Arts in Mannheim and since 2010 he has been a guest lecturer at the Orchesterzentrum|NRW in Dortmund.

SUNG-HYUCK'S PERFORMANCES WITH MAHLER CHAMBER SOLOISTS