Celebrities
Kim Yu-Na
Kim Yu-Na (born September 5, 1990) is a South Korean figure skater.
She is the 2010 Olympic champion in Ladies' Singles, the 2009 World champion, the 2009 Four Continents champion, a three-time (2006–2007, 2007–2008, 2009–2010) Grand Prix Final champion, the 2006 World Junior champion, the 2005–2006 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, and a four-time (2002–2005) South Korean national champion.
Kim is the first South Korean figure skater to win a medal at an ISU Junior or Senior Grand Prix event, ISU Championship, and the Olympic Games. She is the first female skater to win the Olympic Games, the World Championships, the Four Continents Championships and the Grand Prix Final. She is one of the most highly recognized athletes and media figures in South Korea.
As of March 2011, she is ranked first in the world by the International Skating Union (ISU). She is the current record holder for ladies in the short program, the free skating and the combined total under the ISU Judging System. She is also the first female skater to surpass the 200-point mark under the ISU Judging System. She has never placed off the podium in her entire career.
Song Hye-Kyo
Song Hye-kyo (born February 26, 1982) is a South Korean model and actress. She has starred in a number of hit dramas including Autumn in My Heart, All In, and Full House. Due to her popularity she can be seen frequently on advertisements when she is not acting. She is currently signed to talent agency Eden 9 Entertainment.
Kim Yunjin
Yunjin Kim (born November 7, 1973) is a Korean American film and theater actress. Although she is best known in the English-speaking world for her role as Sun-Hwa Kwon on the Americantelevision series, Lost, Kim has also appeared in numerous film and TV projects in South Korea.
Rain
Rain (born Jung Ji-Hoon; June 25, 1982) is a South Korean pop and R&B singer, dancer, model, actor, businessman, and designer.
Rain's musical career includes seven albums (six Korean, one Japanese), 19 singles and numerous concert tours around the world. His acting career began in 2003, when he won the KBS Best New Actor award for his role in the drama Sang Doo! Let's Go To School. In 2004, Rain won the KBS Excellence in Acting award for his role in the drama Full House. After starring in A Love To Kill, he acted in his first Korean film, I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (2006), which won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. Rain has acted in the American films Speed Racer (2008) and Ninja Assassin (2009), the latter of which made him the first Korean to win an MTV award.
Lee Byung-hun
Lee Byung-hun (born July 12, 1970) is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his movie roles in Park Chan-wook's Joint Security Area and Kim Ji-woon's A Bittersweet Life,The Good, the Bad, the Weird and I Saw the Devil. He has starred in numerous hit Korean television dramas such as IRIS, All In and Beautiful Days. He made his Hollywood debut in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra as Storm Shadow.
Wonder Girls
The Wonder Girls are a South Korean girl group. Their producer and manager is singer-songwriter Park Jin-Young and the Wonder Girls are signed to his talent agency, JYP Entertainment. Each of the five original members were selected through auditions. Debuting in early 2007, they became popular in the fall of that year with the song "Tell Me." They have scored three consecutive #1 hit singles: "Tell Me", "So Hot", and "Nobody". In 2008, they won two Daesangs ("Artist of the Year" Awards).
The group began their entry into the American market in 2009, with lead single "Nobody"; the single became the first song by a Korean group to enter the Billboard Hot 100. They are co-managed in the United States by JYP Entertainment and Jonas Group.
BOA
Boa Kwon (Kwon Boa, born November 5, 1986), commonly stylized and known by her stage name BoA, which is a backronym for Beat of Angel, is a Korean singer, active in South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Born and raised in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, BoA was discovered by SM Entertainment talent agents when she accompanied her older brother to a talent search. In 2000, after two years of training, she released ID; Peace B, her debut Korean album, under SM Entertainment. Two years later, she released her debut Japanese album, Listen to My Heart, under the Avex label. On October 14, 2008, under SM Entertainment USA, a subdivision of SM Entertainment, BoA debuted in the United States with the single "Eat You Up" and released her debut English-language album, BoA on March 17, 2009.
Influenced by hip hop and R&B singers such as Nelly and Janet Jackson, many of BoA's songs fall into those genres. As the singer feels she does not "have any talent for writing [songs]", the writing and composition of her songs are handled mostly by her staff; for this reason, she has drawn some criticism. (Though only a few of her songs are self-written, BoA began composing on her own with her Japanese debut album Listen to My Heart, in which she co-wrote and composed the song "Nothing's Gonna Change".) However, BoA began writing her own songs for her 6th Korean album, Hurricane Venus.
BoA's multilingual skills (she speaks Japanese and conversational English along with her native Korean and has recorded songs in Mandarin Chinese) have contributed to her commercial success in South Korea and Japan and her popularity throughout East Asia. She is the only non-Japanese Asian to have three album selling more than one million copies in Japan and is one of only two artists to have six consecutive number-one studio albums on the Oricon charts since her debut.
Lee Hyori
Lee Hyori (born May 10, 1979) is a South Korean R&B & hip-hop singer andactress. She started off as part of the successful K-pop girl group Fin.K.L, but has since become a solo artist. Her first album was very successful, winning many "Daesangs" (a Korean award equivalent to "Artist of the Year") for that album. She has since become the highest-paid female singer in South Korea.
Jo Sumi
Sumi Jo (born November 22, 1962 (age 48)) is a Grammy Award winning South Korean lyriccoloratura soprano known for her interpretations of the bel canto repertoire.
In 1986, Jo made her European operatic debut as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste. In 1988, Jo made her La Scala debut as Thetis in Jommelli's Fetonte. That same year she also made her debut with the Bavarian State Opera and sang Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro at the Salzburg Festival. In 1989, Jo made her debut with the Vienna State Opera and returned to the Salzburg Festival to sing Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera. That same year, she made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera, once again portraying Gilda in Rigoletto.
In 1990, Jo made her debut with the Chicago Lyric Opera as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute. The following year, she returned to the Metropolitan Opera for another performance as Oscar in Un ballo in maschera and made her Royal Opera at Covent Gardendebut as Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann.
In 1993, Jo appeared in the title role of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with the Metropolitan Opera and sang the role of the Queen of the Night at both the Salzburg Festival and Covent Garden. In 1995 she sang the role of Countess Adèle in Le comte Ory at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.Over the next decade Jo maintained a busy schedule, singing Lucia in Strasbourg, Barcelona, Berlin, and Paris; La sonnambula in Brussels and Santiago, Chile; I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Minnesota Opera; Olympia in New York; Rosina in New York; the Queen of the Night in Los Angeles; Gilda in Bilbao, Oviedo, Bologna, Trieste, and Detroit among others; Il turco in Italia in Spain; L'enfant et les sortilèges in Boston and Pittsburgh; Le comte Ory in Rome; and Dinorah in New York. She also appeared in performances at theThéâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opéra National de Paris, Washington Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opera Australia, and the Teatro Colón.
In addition, she appeared with numerous symphony orchestras in concert, including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, theVienna Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra among others. Her work led her to sing under such conductors as Sir Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, James Levine, Kent Nagano, and Richard Bonynge. She also gave recitals throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia.
In 2007, Jo performed her first Violetta in La traviata with the Toulon Opera and in the 2008/2009 season she was scheduled to perform the role of Zerline in Fra Diavolo at both the Opera Comique and Opéra Royal de Wallonie.
( Excerptes from http://en.wikipedia.org )
