At 12:15 p.m. on Sept. 12, two figures dressed in black promptly rose from their chairs, shuffled through the crowded aisles and approached the main stage. An audience of almost 200 sat on the edge of their seats, eager to welcome pianists Jennie Jung and Kyungmi Kim to Pomona College’s Lyman Hall.
This performance was a part of the Friday Noon Concert Series, a long-standing weekly collaboration between the music departments at Pomona and Scripps College. Each Friday concert features professional musicians, including faculty and guest artists. All events are free and open to the public, which contributes to the diverse range of community members in attendance.
As Jung explained, part of what makes the Friday Noon Concert Series so special is its ability, through musical performances, to form tight connections with strangers and offer a sanctuary amidst the chaos of everyday life.
“[The] audience was comprised of people of many different ages and cultures and ideologies,” Jung said over email correspondence with TSL. “But music was able to bring everyone into a safe space and hopefully give an hour of relief from thinking of everything going on outside of that hall.”
Jung has worked as a piano coach and lecturer at Pomona since 2013, and she also teaches applied piano courses at Scripps. As a staff accompanist at Scripps, Kim provides musical support for various activities.
5C students, faculty and neighboring members of the Claremont community eagerly rustled in their seats while Jung and Kim took their spots at the parallel pianos on the stage. Without any introductions or fanfare, the duo started to play.
The first piece was “Mozart’s Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos, K. 448,” a classic composition made up of three very distinct sections called “movements.”
The opening movement is quick and playful, with the two pianists playing off of each other as if finishing each other’s sentences. The second slows down into something gentle and emotional, prompting the listener to really sit back and feel the music. Peppy and strong, the last movement began so loudly that the sound vibrated through each listener’s chest.
In the resting moments between each movement, there was a visible hesitation in the audience. To clap or not to clap — that was the question floating through the air in Lyman Hall. Hands raised tentatively to applaud before lowering back into their laps as the next movement began.
“Generally, for classical music, between the movements of one big work like the Mozart or even the Muskowski, the tradition is to not clap between movements,” Jung explained in an email to TSL. “But I don’t mind when people clap in between moves because it shows that they like something about it.”
Next came Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise,” a melody originally written for voice and piano but often adapted for other instruments. This somber, emotional piece builds in intensity until it gradually fades out at the end.
Attendee Ava Marra SC ’27 watched the sets in awe. She was impressed by the duo’s ability to perform perfectly in sync on two different pianos.
“How do you perform with no conductor at the same time?” Marra said.
Jung confirmed the difficulty of playing in unison, and spoke to the level of connection musicians work towards when performing a duet.
“Every once in a while, you might have seen us looking over [at each other] and trying to breathe together,” she said in email correspondence with TSL. “The Rachmaninoff is especially hard to time all those slow notes rather than the fast, energetic ones.”
For their final set, Jung and Kim moved to a single piano, performing three four-hand selections from Moszkowski’s “Aus aller Herren Ländern.”
With their newfound close proximity, their playing carried a visible sense of ease — the notes flowed out of the piano like a big sigh of relief, their movements marked by a captivating calmness, and subsequent playfulness.
From her vantage point backstage, Pomona Concert Production Manager Audrey Dunne PO ’13 listened intently to the performance that she and many others had worked so hard to bring to life. A Pomona alum and former music major, Dunne helps oversee the Friday Noon Concert Series.
“My job is getting to come and listen to music all the time. It’s pretty amazing” she said. Dunne joined marketing and concert promotion to better understand what goes on behind the scenes and what draws audiences in.
Grace Minturn CM ’26 shared that she first began coming to the weekly concerts because they provided a creative space outside of her schoolwork. “It allows me to escape into a world that I really enjoy and don’t have any stress [about.].”
Jung echoed this sentiment, explaining how for her as a performer and a teacher, she often stresses the importance of letting go of expectations.
“In terms of performing, you have to think of what it is that you want to convey to the audience, and to try to get over this striving for perfection on every single note to be able to really enjoy,” she said over email correspondence with TSL. “That’s [the point] I want my students to get to.”
Friday Noon Concerts offer a space for the Claremont community to enjoy intricate and emotive music up-close, support members of their community and to draw inspiration — whether that means pursuing their own art or simply appreciating other people’s passion and applying that intensity to their own.
“I love music and I love to play the piano,” Jung said in an email to TSL. “I hope the audience can hear that and that it makes their day a little brighter.”