How opera director Ahn Joo-eun uses music to connect world

When Ahn Joo-eun left for Russia in 2000 after one year at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the desire for the music student was to seek independence from her famly. "I didn't let my parents know that I was leaving Italy. And I kept it like that for two years," Ahn, a 44-year-old opera director, told The Korea Times during an interview in Seoul Monday. She studied vocal music at a university in Novosibirsk, a city in central Russia. Looking back, she believes that the random decision to move to the Russian city laid the foundation for her career as an opera director who is also actively connecting Korea with the wider world through music. When Ahn arrived in the Russian city over two decades ago, she didn't speak a word of Russian. “I didn’t leave my room for three days until I had memorized the alphabet," she recalled. She pushed herself to learn the language quickly. After acquiring a bit of fluency in the Russian language, she took side jobs to support herself, among which was an interpreter position with Orion, the Korean snack company known for Choco Pies, assistWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times