Ariel Gilley (김유은) is a classically trained pianist,

        born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1969.   Her mother, a dedicated

        piano teacher, discovered Ariel's unusual talent and interest in

        music and began teaching her by the young age of five. 

 

                  Ariel played an extremely technically-challenging piece

        - Liszt's Etude No.6 after Paganini - for the entrance exam

        to the Yewon School of Art (예원 학교), and earned the highest

        score in the piano division; she was only eleven years old.

 

                                                     The same year, Ariel was chosen by Seoul Symphony

        Orchestra which allowed her to perform with them ---

        Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor.   

 

                  And the following year, she was accepted through an

        audition, as the youngest piano pupil of the group, to attend 

        a month-long study in the US, offered by Chung Trio.

 

                                                                   

                                             

                                                  Later Ariel earned the privilege of performing with the Yewon Orchestra (예원 오케스트라),                                                                                                        the Seoul Art High School Orchestra (서울 예고 오케스트라),

                                                                                       and the Seoul National  University Orchestra (서울대 오케스트라),

                                                     all as a result of earning the highest score each semesters in the piano department

                                                                                                                           throughout school years of those schools.

                                                 

                                             Over the course of those days, a well-known professor offered to teach her without pay,

                                                                                                        and her parents gratefully agreed to accept the offer.

 

 

        One interesting event in Ariel's career occured

             when she was participating the Chopin Piano Competition in Korea (한국 쇼팽 콩쿨),

                 which lasted a month from start to finish.

 

       After the semi final, she was informed of the date of the final,

             which turned out, however, to be the exact same day she was scheduled to perform

                 Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the London Royal Academy Orchestra                                                                                                                                                    and the Seoul National University Orchestra.

                                                  

       Ariel finished playing for the final of the Chopin Competition

             and rushed to the concert hall for the last rehearsal with the orchestra.

                  Following the successful performance that evening,

                                                                        she was informed that she also had won the first prize of the competition!!

 

 

 

        Ariel did not begin to compose until after her entrance to the Peabody Conservatory of music in 1993.

        For the next two years she wrote hundreds of five-minute works for her local church,

        sometimes working up to eight hours on each one. 

        (Why five minutes? “That was the time usually allowed for a person to play an Offertory,” says Ariel. )

        At the conclusion of her studies for her Master's Degree, in 1995,

        Ariel played her own arrangement of "Amazing Grace" as the encore piece of her final college recital.

 

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        Upon completing her degree at Peabody, Ariel returned to Korea and worked for seven years

        as a concert pianist where she quickly earned a reputation for playing with superb technique and

        expressiveness. She received numerous offers by music professors to premiere their modern  

        compositions and later recorded some of those pieces in the studio by requests.

 

 

        On one notable occasion, the Buchon Philharmonic Orchestra asked her, less than a month before

        the concert, whether she could play Rachmaninoff's Theme and Variation with them; their appointed pianist

        had opted out due to sudden sickness.

        Although Ariel had never before played this highly-demanding piece, she accepted the challenge and      

        played flawlessly, not only for the people in the concert hall, but also before a live television audience.

 

 

        Most of her compositions since then have been based on well-known hymns,

                         which gradually developed into various formats and lengths,

                                          and were often performed in her solo recitals or at various churches.

 

 

                                                                                                       Ariel’s goal is to create “serious music” in praise of God.

                                                                                                                                                                             She has written:

                                                    “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were solo piano pieces arranged in classical styles

                                                              in which my entire being could communicate with listeners the praise of God?”                                                                                    These ideas motivated Ariel to create her own classical piano pieces

                                                                                                                     based on familiar and beloved Christian hymns.

 

          

        She also desired to compose with original thematic material, not necessarily based on hymns,

        and created programmatic music that relate events from the Bible. 

        The result of that is In the Garden of Eden , released in 2014.

     

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                                                              Ariel now resides in Richmond, VA,

                                                                  with her husband and son,

                                                                                  teaching young students,

                                                                                                                             as an instructor of Veritas Conservatory,

                                                                         and continues to compose, record and perform

                                                                                       original sacred classical music pieces

                                                                                                                     through the abundant grace of God.