Biography

Born in Seoul, Korea, Saffron Y. Chung now considers New York City her home. She chose her path in music early at Oberlin College, where she was the first recipient of a double major in Piano Performance and Vocal Accompanying. She also has Masters of Music in Accompanying from University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. She has served as an assistant conductor of opera companies such as Chautauqua Opera, El Paso Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Madison Opera, New York City Opera, Sarasota Opera, Syracuse Opera and Utah Festival Opera Company, Wichita Grand Opera, under the baton of Harry Bickett, Richard Buckley, Christian Capocaccia, Barbara Day-Turner, Victor De Renzi, John DeMain, Raymond Harvey, Kynan Johns, Eugene Kohn, David Larsen, Robert Lyall, Stewart Robertson, Louis Salemno, Steven Sloane, Bob Tweeten, and Steven White.

For many years, Saffron has worked as a vocal coach and accompanist, preparing hundreds of singers for auditions, concerts, opera performances and recitals. Aside from the standard classical operatic and art song repertoire, she specializes in contemporary opera. When the popularity of Little Women by Mark Adamo soared, she was the one of very few coaches in New York City who has worked on the full opera and coached many singers of all roles in it. She has helped singers to prepare difficult roles such as Haroun from Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Wuorinen for Boston premiere, Mark Rutland from Marnie by Nico Muly for the world premiere at English National Opera, Marquise de Merteuil from Quartette by Luca Francesconi for US return of its fifth production, to name a few. She was also a rehearsal pianist for the Grammy Award winning ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, for their preparation of international tour of Triptych by Bryce Dessner.

She is not a stranger to the world of academia and education, both in pre-college and college level. She has been working with many children’s choral groups such as Harlem Boys Choir, Manhattan Girls Choir, National Children’s Chorus, Professional Performing Arts High School and Spence School. She is a former Adjunct Faculty in Accompanying at William Paterson State University, and a former staff accompanist at Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Mannes School of Music. She led a workshop of Brahms lieder for the voice department at Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts. Then participated in an admission audition tour to Beijing Conservatory to audition mainland Chinese singers for the scholarship spot at the Hong Kong Academy. She has given a seminar for the graduate accompanying majors at Hansei University in Korea, and worked with the Opera Department at Rutgers University preparing Albert Herring by Britten.

She was a guest artist of the Atelier Concert Series, Paris, France, where she performed an art song recital with mezzo soprano, Julie Devere, in a program of all American living composers works. Her recent international engagements include a tour with New York City Opera to Abu Dhabi and Dubai where she was the music director for Bizet’s Carmen.

As an avid knitter, she is known to some selective companies to supply them with various knitted items she makes during staging rehearsals for costumes. Once, the entire cast of Fiddler on the Roof has had some pieces of her work, and the dancers in Macbeth wore her “holey” pieces that she designed. she also dabs at designing and making quilts. She belongs in a quilting bee that participates in IIDA The Commercial Interior Design Association New York Chapter’s Sustainable Quilt Auction that benefits charity organizations. She rather enjoys inevitable traveling she does for her work.

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