Three Korean soloists perform concertos at this year’s Proms, including Yunchan Lim who opens the festival. 17 July (First Night): Yunchan Lim (piano) Dalia Stasevska and massed BBC forces launch the 2026 season with an American accent. The widescreen vision of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man zooms in to teeming city streets in Gershwin’s … [Read More]
Venue: Albert Hall
Inmo Yang (violin): Prom debut
An all-French programme whose first half celebrates the bright, exotic colours conjured by Bizet, who died 150 years ago. As well as a suite from his incidental music for ‘The Girl from Arles’, we hear the fantasy for violin and orchestra featuring music – including the famous ‘Habanera’ – from his best-loved opera, reimagined with explosive virtuosity … [Read More]
Gray by Silver performs at Viva Blackpool and K-music 2025
Jazz, tradition, and improvisation in poetic conversation The 2024 Best Jazz Album winner at the Seoul Music Awards, Gray by Silver, join the K-Music Festival with their upcoming third album, Time of Tree, blending the emotional depth of traditional Korean music with the expressive language of contemporary jazz and classical. Formed in 2016, Gray by … [Read More]
Yunchan Lim Plays Rachmaninov at the Proms
After a ‘dazzling’ Proms debut last year, pianist and global phenomenon Yunchan Lim returns, joining Kazuki Yamada and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Rachmaninov’s final piano concerto. Rich in scope and ambition, tinged with the jazz rhythms and harmonies of the composer’s new homeland, it’s a technical tour de force. Musical visions from … [Read More]
Yunchan Lim plays Chopin at the Albert Hall
Frederic Chopin took the piano and transformed it into the ultimate vehicle for the Romantic imagination. There’s a burning fire beneath the poetry of his music, or as one contemporary put it ‘cannons hidden in flowers’. In the hands of Yunchan Lim – who in 2022 became the youngest-ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition … [Read More]
Seong-Jin Cho Plays Ravel and Liszt in late-night Prom
Sir András Schiff, the advertised pianist for this evening’s recital, has had to withdraw owing to a broken leg. The BBC Proms is grateful to Seong-Jin Cho for appearing at short notice. Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, who dazzled Proms audiences earlier this season with Mozart’s ‘Jeunehomme’ Piano concerto, gives a recital of solo piano works … [Read More]
Yunchan Lim plays Beethoven’s Emperor in Prom debut
Yunchan Lim makes his Proms debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi, performing Beethoven’s final piano concerto, the ‘Emperor’. Bookending the Prom are Bruckner’s First Symphony and Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Aditus In 2022 Yunchan Lim became the youngest ever winner of the Van Cliburn Competition, America’s most distinguished contest for outstanding pianists. … [Read More]
Bomsori Kim plays Bruch in Proms debut
South Korean star violinist Bomsori makes her Proms debut with Bruch’s much-loved First Violin Concerto – the ‘richest’ and ‘most seductive’ of all the concertos for the instrument, according to 19th-century virtuoso Joseph Joachim. The folk music that runs through Bruch’s concerto also pulses through Brahms’s lively Hungarian Dances and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra – … [Read More]
Myung-Whun Chung conducts Rachmaninov and Brahms at the Proms
Myung-Whun Chun, the principal guest conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, is the third of three major Korean figures in the Proms this year: Prom 63: Yuja Wang plays Rachmaninov Thursday 5 September 2019 at 7:30pm, Royal Albert Hall Tickets: £18 to £72 (plus booking fee) | Book tickets Yuja Wang: piano Staatskapelle Dresden Myung-Whun Chung: … [Read More]
Seong-Jin Cho plays Prokofiev at the Proms
The second of three Proms this year featuring Korean performers: Prom 48: Rachmaninov, Prokofiev + Silvestri 19:30 Sat 24 Aug 2019 Royal Albert Hall Tickets £9.50 to £52 (plus booking fee) | Book tickets Seong-Jin Cho: piano BBC Symphony Orchestra Cristian Măcelaru: conductor Constantin Silvestri: Three Pieces for strings (11 mins) Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto … [Read More]
Yeol Eum Son plays Mozart at the Proms
The first of three Proms this year featuring Korean performers: Prom 7: Schumann, Schoenberg, Ben-Haim and Mozart 19:30 Tue 23 Jul 2019 Royal Albert Hall Tickets £7.50 to £41 (plus booking fee) | Book tickets Yeol Eum Son: piano BBC Philharmonic Omer Meir Wellber: conductor Programme Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 15 in B … [Read More]
Joo Yeon Sir in broadcast premier and Albert Hall debut
Last November, violinist Joo Yeon Sir won the Arts Club Karl Jenkins Classical Music Award, held in association with the radio station Classic FM. The award was launched in 2013 to identify the most exciting young performers in Britain. According to Classic FM, the “candidates were judged based upon their technique, individualism, musicality, interpretation, communication … [Read More]
The Seoul Philharmonic – a young orchestra with “an extraordinary sense of adventure”
On 27 August, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra made its Proms debut, the first Korean orchestra to play at the famous music festival. At the Pre-Prom talk earlier that evening across the road at the Royal College of Music, Michael Fine and Hyunjin Park of the Seoul Philharmonic, and Dr Haekyung Eom of Liverpool University, talked … [Read More]
The Seoul Philharmonic at the BBC Proms – with a Proms Plus intro
The Seoul Philharmonic will be at the BBC Proms under their music director Myung-Whun Chung on 27 August. The programme includes work by Korean composer Unsuk Chin. The Prom is preceded by a free talk in the Royal College of Music, 5:45pm-6:30pm, hosted by BBC Radio 3 presenter Petroc Trelawny, focusing on the orchestra and … [Read More]
Sarah Chang plays Bruch
Korean American violinist Sarah Chang will be appearing in a programme of popular classics at the Albert Hall tomorrow night in a charity concert put on by Classic FM. Alex James from Blur will be guest conducting the Northern Sinfonia orchestra in the theme from the Onedin Line. Chang will be playing everyone’s favourite fiddle … [Read More]
Concert Review: Unsuk Chin at the BBC Proms — A new work enters the Cello repertoire
Last Thursday (13 August) saw the world premiere of the cello concerto by Unsuk Chin, a BBC commission. Chin, who was born in Korea in 1961, has been composer-in-residence for both the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. She is a careful worker: the new work was originally scheduled for the 2007 Prom … [Read More]















