Combining Talents

Alex Jenkins talks to Sunny Kang, the lady captain at Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club and a world-renowned clarinetist.

Sunny – who is known in the music world by her birth name, Seunghee Lee – believes her musical background has been a key reason for her ability to pick up golf so quickly.

"Golf is just like music," she says matter-of-factly. "Both require coaching, a routine and discipline – but most importantly they're both all about rhythm and tempo. Also, knowing what to practice makes you more efficient."

But while music has helped improve her game, golf has also helped – indirectly at least – her music.

After the first of her two sons was born, Sunny became a full-time mother. And while she didn't give up the clarinet, she knew where her priorities lay. "I looked at Brava as almost a retirement album," she admits.

That was until last year when, one day, she was thinking ahead of her tenure as lady captain.

"At the drive-in [the captain's first official event], it's normal for the captain to give away gifts to all the participants as souvenirs. I was thinking about what I could do that might be a bit different," she remembers. "Then it struck me: I'll make a new CD!"

The result – which saw Sunny return to the recording studio for the first time in over a decade – is Embrace, an 18-track album featuring her take on a range of beautiful classical compositions from the likes of Chopin, Schumann and Dvorak. And like Brava before it, Embrace has won stunning praise from those within the industry. Released last November in the US, the album reached the top 10 of the classical charts in Hong Kong earlier this year, where it jockeyed for position with offerings from artists such as Lang Lang, Katherine Jenkins and Andrea Bocelli, reaching a high of No 4.

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