Clara Chung, known by her stage name Clara C, is an American singer and songwriter. Chung is a YouTube artist who rose to fame when she won numerous talent competitions in a row including Los Angeles’ Kollaboration 10, KAC Media Juice Night, and ISA 2009.
Early life and education
Chung was born in New York on October 31, 1987 to South Korean-born parents who currently reside in Northridge, California. Chung graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and a minor in Education in 2010. Although she is currently pursuing music full-time, she also works and teaches children with autism part-time.
Career
In a 2011 interview after the release of her first album, Chung said that she initially was not particularly motivated to post videos of her singing and guitar playing on YouTube, but was encouraged by her friends to try it out. Chung describes the music in her album, The Art in My Heart, as being diverse and "taking on a lot of different sounds." "There are songs that are very much like Sara Bareilles and others that are more like Coldplay. And there are other songs that I can't categorize. I guess if you want to sum up influences, I’d say definitely Sara Bareilles, John Mayer, Feist." In 2010, Chung won the Kollaboration LA competition after writing her first hit original song "Offbeat", and performing it at the competition held at the Shrine located near University of Southern California. In April 2010, Chung worked with other popular artists such as rappers Dumbfoundead and Jay Park. In September 2010, she released her album Art in My Heart in conjunction with her music video for the lead single "Offbeat". The video for "Offbeat" was directed by viral video director Ross Ching and produced by Don Le of Fusion3Films. The concept for the video was Chung singing amongst inspiring visuals in a world filled with bubbles. It has amassed over 13,000,000 unique YouTube views so far. DJ Descry and My Parasol have produced the only known remixes to date. In 2011, director Ross Ching and producer Don Le followed up with a second music video, "The Camel Song". The video featured YouTube personality, Nigahiga, as her love interest. In February 2011, Chung announced her Loveprint mini-tour in which she makes stops in Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and San Diego. On June 6, 2011 on an interview with Robert Herrera of Front Row Live Entertainment, Chung stated that she is currently writing a new album. On September 15, Chung released her 2nd Album titled esc. Chung also toured with David Choi on their Fall Tour presented by YesStyle, visiting 19 different cities from Canada and the United States. On September 30, Chung released her acoustic album Organika, and in October toured the United States and Canada, visiting 14 cities. This tour was an acoustic tour that is based off her album Organika. Chung and her husband were featured in Andy Grammer's music video for "Honey I'm Good."
