South Korean harpist Jane Yoo started her musical journey playing the cello at a very young age, but she didn’t fall in love with music until she discovered the harp at age 13. She loved the harp so much that she’s known to practice for up to fifteen hours a day. When Yoo began her graduate studies in harp performance, her teacher told her to stop practicing so much and “get away from the harp.” Since that time, Yoo has performed in concerts all around the world from France to Hong Kong, to Israel, to the United States and she is truly one of the sweetest people you’ll ever have the pleasure to meet.
Yoo has won numerous prizes in some of the biggest harp competitions in the world, including the USA International Harp Competition. She’s won top prizes at the Korean International Harp Competition, the Korean National Music Association, the Korean Chamber Orchestra Competition, and the Szeged Hungary International Harp Competition. Recently, she received an honorable mention from the Lyon and Healy Awards in 2022.
As a soloist, Yoo has performed with such orchestras as Kangnam Symphony Orchestra, the Yale Philharmonia and the Seoul National University Orchestra. Most recently in 2023, Yoo joined the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as an associate principal harpist. In 2017, she was invited as a soloist in the “Focus on Youth” concert of World Harp Congress in Hong Kong and was twice named a Kumho Young Concert Artist by the Kumho Cultural Art Foundation in Seoul, South Korea; first in 2014 and then again in 2017.
Yoo holds a Bachelor of Music from Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea and a Master of Music from Yale School of Music in New Haven, Connecticut. In May of 2024 she obtained an Artist Diploma from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland where she was the only musician to be admitted into the prestigious program with a unanimous vote. In the Fall of 2024, Yoo will begin study in the Ph. D. program in harp performance also at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
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