N. Korean Flees for Love of Jazz Piano

The story of Kim Cheol-woong, a classically trained North Korean pianist who first heard jazz piano while studying abroad and decided he would have to leave the country to play it. In 2001 he crossed the Tumen River into China, and he reached South Korea two years later.

At 31 he was teaching music at a university in Seoul and hoped to play at Carnegie Hall. He told the reporter that in North Korea, musicians were only a tool to maintain the regime.

This page summarizes an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018). The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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