Jo Su Gyeong, known artistically as Sumi Jo, is a South Korean lyric coloratura soprano. Her mother was an amateur singer and pianist who had been unable to pursue her own professional music studies because of politics in Korea during the 1950s. Determined to provide her daughter with opportunities she never had, Jo’s mother enrolled her in piano lessons at the age of 4 and later voice lessons at the age of 6 studying up to 8 hours per day due to her mother strict rules. She graduated from Sun Hwa Arts School with a dual diploma in voice and piano in 1980. Later, she went to Seoul National University and made her debut appearing in several concerts broadcasted by KBS and also in Mozart’s "The Marriage of Figaro". She left SNU to study in the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome where she appeared in many concerts and TV broadcasts and decided to change her name to Sumi and use the Western format for her full name to make it easier to pronounce for Europeans. She graduated in 1985 and later began studying with soprano Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. In 1992, she won the Grammy for Best Opera Recording.
Since her debut she has appeared in many operas and shared the stage with giants like Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming and Angela Gheorghiu, among others. She has performed in operas around Europe, Asia, and the United States, has won numerous prizes and has given special performances for events such as the opening or closing ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2018 Winter Paralympics and the main song ("The Champions") for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. In 2021, she was appointed as the visiting distinguished professor at KAIST’s Graduate School of Culture Technology.
(Source: Wikipedia)
