Raeun Hong
Raeun Hong from South Korea will fill the Bethlehem Chapel with the resonant tone of the oboe this September.
Born in 2009 in Seoul into a musical family, Raeun Hong began studying piano and violin at the age of five, and took up the oboe at eight. At the age of ten, she became the youngest student ever admitted to study woodwind instruments at the Korean National Institute of the Arts. In 2020, she was named "Outstanding Young Artist of the Year" by the school, and at eleven, she gave her first solo recital at the Elim Art Center. Over the past three years, she has won numerous awards, including first prize and the Music Director’s Prize at the International Music Competition in Barletta, Italy, the Grand Prize at the International Competition in Vienna (2023), and several first prizes in South Korea, Denmark, and Latvia. In 2023, she was named the "Young Musician" by the Kumho Music Foundation in Seoul, and in March 2024, she performed a recital at the Kumho Art Hall, which received highly positive feedback. Last year, she also became the youngest oboist ever to reach the second round of the 59th International Oboe Competition in Markneukirchen, Germany.
