A Korean conductor's first time on a Korean podium

Cho Noori did not set out to become a conductor. She trained as a concert pianist — achieving competition wins, going to the top of her class at Dankook University, then winning the Kumho Prize, one of Korea's most competitive classical prizes. The switch came almost by accident, during a piano master's program in Germany, when a required conducting class put a baton in her hand. What she felt — that music could come from a gesture instead of her hands on the keys — reset the direction of her ca