Sara Davis Beuchner, an American pianist who went through a transsexual operation, will be holding a recital at the Kumho Cultural Center on May 18. Beuchner teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and New York University after graduating from Juilliard and won awards in the Queen Elizabeth International Music Competition and the Tchaikovsky Concours in her 20s. Beuchner was also invited to perform in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, featured as one of the Greatest Performers.Ħħ
"You don't decide to change your sex, rather, you realize it. I knew that there was a woman inside me ever since I was little, and that caused conflicts with what others thought of me," said Buechner adding that, "there is a clinical study that hormone imbalance in a baby in the womb can cause a baby to born physically male but brain to functions as a women. I was born like that." Beuchner went through the transsexual operation in 1998 and changed her name to Sara.
"It was awkward at first to wear long dress and high heels on the stage, rather than tuxedo, but it was a process to become a women, which I believe, helped my music career." Beuchner will give a special lecture at Yonsei University and hold recital on May 18, featuring Mozart's Piano Sonata in F major, Brahms's Variations and Fugue on a theme from Handel, Op.24, and Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."
(Kim Ryong-un, proarte@chosun.com)
