All eyes are currently on Cho Seong-jin, winner of this year’s Chopin competition. But while we wait for the reviews of his debut Deutsche Grammophon release, let’s not forget other Korean pianists with an affinity for Chopin. In this months’s Grammophone one of the Editor’s Choices is a disk of Chopin preludes by Lim Dong-hyek:
“Lim’s Preludes … speak from the heart … sitting alongside classic accounts by Argerich, Rubenstein and Cortot without apology.”
Just to show that playing Chopin 1 is no walkover.
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/culture/2015/11/135_190066.html
But where do all these Korean pianists spring from? I’ve just got home from SAC, where I heard Kim Kyu Yeon, who’s been around a while but is a new name to me, give a marvellous performance of Beethoven’s 1st with the Suwon Philharmonic.