Fall 2009 | Volume 68, No. 1

Called to play - Young Kyoung Kwon

by Southwestern News Staff

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Adjunct Piano Professor | SWBTS
Master of Music (2005) | Doctor of Musical Arts (2009)

For Young Kyoung Kwon, a recent doctoral graduate from Southwestern Seminary, playing the piano was a ministry even during childhood.

At age 5, Kwon began to take piano lessons, and she started playing at her church in South Korea at age 12. She earned her bachelor’s degree in piano from ChuGye University for the Arts. As a college student, she played the piano accompani-ment for a missions choir, Ambassador Singers, that performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Japan. The director of the choir suggested that Kwon apply for admissions at Southwestern Seminary to gain more training in music ministry.

“I think there was no better school for me than Southwestern,” Kwon says, “because I did not only improve on my repertoire of classical music studies, but also theology and music ministry. So I feel like I was equipped to serve the church as a whole multi-dimensional person, and not only as a pianist or accompanist.”

At Southwestern, Kwon earned her Master of Music degree with a concentration in piano, and she completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in piano in May 2009. Kwon now serves as an adjunct professor in Southwestern’s School of Church Music. This fall, she is also playing for two of the seminary’s performing groups, the Southwestern Singers and the Master Chorale.

In 2008, Kwon received the James C. McKinney Outstanding Performer Award. Because of this, she was invited to perform at the seminary’s sixth annual Gala Concert of Sacred Music at Fort Worth’s Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall in 2009. At the gala, she and Robert Smith, chair of Southwestern’s piano department and Kwon’s dissertation advisor, played dueling pianos in a movement of Mozart’s Concerto in E-flat Major.

“It was a surprise,” Kwon says. “I am not only grateful for the award, but they also gave me the opportunity to play at the Bass Hall. It was an honor for me to play with my professor, Dr. Smith, and it was the highest honor for me at the seminary.”

Outside the seminary, Kwon serves as a pianist and organist for Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth, and, last August, she performed in churches throughout Europe. She primarily played compositions arranged by Southwestern Seminary faculty members, and many members of these churches were music students. Pastors at these churches told Kwon that her concerts encouraged these music students to play hymn arrangements and to serve the church with their abilities.

“This is my calling,” Kwon says of the music ministry, “and this is what I have done all my life. And I feel joyful when I do it. ... I think it is my duty: giving back to God what I received from Him and sharing it with other people.”

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