On paper, the Youn Sun Nah phenomenon is difficult to describe. When she made her Munich debut 15 years ago at the Unterfahrt jazz club, the hall rose to applause even before the break, and many had tears in their eyes. Because the South Korean singer has the ability, like few others, to cut the listener’s heart directly with her voice. A critic of the Frankfurter Rundschau once described one of their concerts as a “disturbing experience that, if there were a God, would never end.” This effect arises from Youn Sun Nah’s unusually deep, trance-like immersion in the music, which makes her appear shy and timid before, to the astonishment of everyone, she can wail heartbreakingly, master ridiculously difficult vocalizations and almost explode dynamically. All this with perhaps the greatest precision and nuance found in the vast field of jazz singing.
You can do that now Prinzregententheater experience again when Youn Sun Nah presents her new album “Elles”. On the one hand, it is a homage to pieces, mostly classics, to which she feels a special connection, from Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” to Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With This Song”. But above all to the singers who influenced her: “All of them are pioneers, to whom I owe the fact that I am here today. They have never stopped reinventing themselves. Björk, for example, can be very fragile, but is also not afraid , completely exposing herself in front of the microphone. And Maria João can sound like a lioness, but with other songs it’s like a little child is singing them. I’m an introverted person by nature, and all these singers have something that I am missing.”
Constantly reinventing yourself is also Youn Sun Nah’s life story. The daughter of a conductor and a classical soprano became a musical star in her homeland at the age of 23. But because she studied French literature and really wanted to become a chanson singer, she went to Paris at the age of 25. Nobody there was waiting for a chanson singer from South Korea, so she ended up with jazz, which she had hardly heard before. “A friend recommended this style of singing to me. He said: If you can sing jazz, then you can sing anything.” At first she wanted to give up quickly: “I thought I had made the wrong choice because I have a completely different voice than Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. But my teachers taught me that jazz isn’t just one color and encouraged me “To listen to other singers. They were my saviors.”
Her first five albums between 2001 and 2007 not only brought her a breakthrough in South Korea and France, but also a contract with the Munich Act label. Her records there finally made her an international star, and in 2017 she was a figurehead for the label at the big 25th anniversary concert in the Berlin Konzerthaus. And yet she was already on the verge again. America, the home of jazz, was now their destination. “I’m very realistic and I know how difficult it will be. But I’m always looking for new adventures. So I want to at least try,” she said at the time when she moved to New York.
“If you can sing jazz, then you can sing anything,” a friend told Youn Sun Nah.
(Photo: Seung Yull Nah)
However, the first attempt went wrong: the collaboration with the New York jazz piano avant-gardist Jamie Saft didn’t work either artistically or personally. After all, that’s how she came to the major label Warner, where her albums have been released ever since. Most recently in 2022, “Waking World”, the first with exclusively his own compositions created during the South Korean Corona lockdown. Now the exact opposite follows: She only sings cover versions on “Elles”, all recorded in a duo with the American pianist Jon Cowherd, who plays all kinds of keyboards.
On the tour, and also in the Prinzregententheater, her companion is Bojan Zulfikarpašić, the Serbian pianist from Paris, who as Bojan Z was one of the great promises of the jazz piano scene in the 1990s and 2000s, but never made his big breakthrough . Incomprehensible to anyone who has ever seen him live. Zulfikarpašić also has a distinctive, idiosyncratic style, so his meeting with Youn Sun Nah should be extremely exciting. And be careful, you should have a tissue with you at the latest when you hear her moving version of Björk’s “Cocoon”.
Youn Sun Nah & Bojan Zulfikarpašić, Friday, February 9th, 8 p.m., Prinzregententheater, Prinzregentenplatz 12, www.theaterakademie.de