Gaga Won's playing brings forth a rich, warm, and complex sound. Praised for her fearless playing, she uncovers the truest and most expressive spirit of the music.

 

Ms. Won was born in 1993 in South Korea. She began her musical studies with piano at age 8, and moved to violin as her primary instrument by the age of 10. At 12, she moved to the United States and studied violin with Jose Delgado and Carla Trynchuk. At the renowned Interlochen Arts Summer Festival she was awarded the only full Emerson Scholarship in both 2010 and 2011 and was a finalist in the Annual Concerto Competition. She went on to attend Interlochen Arts Academy with a Merit Scholarship from 2010-2012 where she served as Concertmaster in the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra under the baton of Jung Ho Pak.

 

Ms. Won holds a Bachelor of Music degree from San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Wei He, receiving the Sergei Barsukov Scholarship for violin in 2015. For her Master's, she studied with Hyo Kang at Yale School of Music, serving as a Teaching Artist, and participating in masterclasses with Bill Vander Sloot, Paul Kantor, Catalyst Quartet, and Annie Chalex Boyle. Ms. Won also loves to play in Art Exhibitions, performing at the Third Annual High School Visual Art Touring Exhibition and Harry Ahn’s Painting Exhibition.

 

As a soloist and chamber musician, Ms. Won has played a variety of performances internationally. She has given performances in South Korea, Italy, China, and Japan. In Italy, she performed at the Castle of Courmayeur. The following year, she performed with her teacher, Wei He at Li Shui Theater in China.

 

More recently, she served as Concertmaster of the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra, which toured throughout Japan. Gaga has performed under the baton of Marin Alsop and Valery Gergiev, and led the orchestra for the Hadyn Concerto for Two Horns alongside soloists, Radek Baborak and Sarah Willis. Beyond her experience in concert music, Ms. Won has also played for an Apple Keynote Presentation at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California.

 

She has also expanded her artistic pursuits into music composition and film scoring. Her most recent piece accompanied “Linear Brightness”, a short film and art exhibition by photographers Jeong Mori & Jung Jaeyoung, which premiered in Seoul, South Korea in November 2022.

 

Ms. Won teaches piano and violin to players beginner to professional, in both Korean and English. She serves as a faculty member at the New York Conservatory of Music and is a top educator for CLASS101, the foremost online learning platform in South Korea.

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