Kang's parents are famous Korean opera singers: her father is
Wagnerian bass Philip Kang, and her mother is
soprano Han Min-hee. Clara-Jumi Kang started playing the violin aged three. A year later she became the youngest student ever to enter the
Mannheim Musikhochschule, where she studied under
Valery Gradov, who had also taught
Frank Peter Zimmermann. When Kang was five she moved to
Lübeck to study under Professor
Zakhar Bron, and performed her first public concerto. German magazine
Die Zeit featured six-year-old Kang on its cover, depicting her as a
'Wunderkind'. Aged seven she won a full scholarship to
Juilliard, after the school's violin instructor
Dorothy DeLay heard Kang's playing. Kang suffered a serious injury to her hand aged 11 and was not able to play for many years. By 16 Kang had taken her
Bachelor and
Master's degrees at the
Korean National University of Arts under Nam-Yun Kim. While a student in Korea she placed highly in several international violin competitions. She later studied at the
Munich Musikhochschule with
Christoph Poppen from 2011 to 2013. == Performing and recording career ==