Music is equal to breath for me. It is a sounding, sculptured breath – and thus an existential part and necessity of life. With music the soul begins to breathe. In this breathing I hear the vast sound of silence.
– Jimin Oh-Havenith
An exceptional sonority and fidelity owed to the text determine Jimin Oh-Havenith’s piano playing. Her warm sound, which is always embedded within the rhythmic structure, lets music come alive in all its richness. Synchronicity of sound and rhythm, not arbitrary changes in tempo and dynamics determine the clarity of her interpretation, as in Jimin Oh-Havenith’s recording of Beethoven’s last sonata op. 111.
Jimin Oh-Havenith was born in Seoul, South Korea. After studying piano with Jin-Woo Chung (Seoul National University) and Aloys Kontarsky (Musikhochschule Köln) she performed as a soloist and recorded for radio and CD, also as a piano duo with her late husband Raymund Havenith (†1993). Jimin taught at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz and the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende
Kunst Frankfurt am Main.
Since 2013 she has been active again as a soloist.