 "Why a 20-year-old South Korean pianist is being called ‘most exciting on planet’")
The Greek philosopher Aristocles has rightly said, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
One such prodigy in music is Yunchan Lim, whose life is surrounded by excellence.
The pianist’s performances have been described as “visceral,” “magnetic,” and “poetic.”
Here’s all we know about him.
About Yunchan Lim
Born in Sihueung in 2004, Yunchan Lim is a 20-year-old South Korean pianist. At 18, he was the youngest pianist ever to win the prestigious Van Cliburn International piano competition in Texas, as per BBC.
He started piano lessons when he was seven and entered the Music Academy of Seoul Arts Centre a year later.
None of his family members are musicians, but his mother listened to recordings of Chopin and Liszt, while his father was “a great fan of Korean traditional music,” he told The Guardian in an interview.
His talent was evident at 13, when he was a student at the Korean National Institute for the Gifted in Arts, and met his teacher and mentor, Minsoo Sohn, with whom he still studies.
“I immediately noticed that he was a huge talent. He’s very humble,” his teacher once told the New York Times.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsFollowing winning in the Texas competition, he has released two recordings: a live performance of Beethoven’s Emperor concerto with the Gwangju Symphony Orchestra, and one of Liszt’s incredibly challenging Transcendental Etudes, recorded at the contest’s semi-finals, according to BBC.
Within hours of its debut in his own country, the latter, distributed by Universal Music Korea, became platinum.
More than 15 million people have seen the livestream of him playing the Third Piano Concerto by Rachmaninov on YouTube. This is the most popular rendition of the renowned romantic piano concerto on the platform.
Record business executives from Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, London, New York, and Seoul courted Yunchan before he ultimately signed a contract with Decca Records, a 94-year-old British label, in 2023.
His first studio recording was released by Decca in the spring of this year.
He, along with his mother, lives in Boston, where his teacher lives.
According to his interview with The Guardian, his management team carefully limit his concerts to around 40 annually. “He needs time to study, to learn new repertoire and chill – he’s still a boy!” says Federico Benigni, who is a part of his management team.
‘The most exciting artist on the planet’
Decca Record’s co-president Tom Lewis, who succeeded to sign this “once-in-a-generation” talent, described Yunchan as, “The most exciting new classical artist on the planet. It took a global mission to secure his signature… and we are so excited that he chose us.”
“A slight, unsmiling, rather otherworldly lad, Lim seems not just at one with his piano, but positively in love with it,” wrote the Independent’s Jessica Duchen while reviewing his studio debut at the Wigmore Hall. “His playing is so good you think you’re dreaming.”
His rendition of Rachmaninoff’s concerto in Texas, which won him Cliburn competition, had moved conductor Martin Alsop to tears.
British pianist Stephen Hough, who was on the jury with Alsop, according to The Guardian, said, “People complain about piano competition winners all sounding the same. This was spectacularly not true about Yunchan Lim. He caught in a remarkable way the many facets of this hugely challenging piece: the need for control but also to feel that things are on the edge; huge power yet lyrical tenderness too.”
The Guardian’s Andrew Clements, reviewed Lim’s recording of Chopin’s Etudes, released earlier this year and said, “His technique (is) dazzlingly immaculate and the musical impulses propelling it startlingly original.”
‘A monk with devotion to music’
Benigni, told The New York Times, “He’s like a monk in his single-minded devotion to music.”
“A famous performer and an earnest performer – a true artist – are two different things,” he said.
“Many, many pianists of the past and present have influenced me. Arcadi Volodos, Mikhail Pletnev and Clara Haskil come first to mind, but there are too many to mention,” Yunchan told The Guardian, adding that Rachmaninov is the first among equals.
“He is at the top of that list. I was nine when I first heard the recording of him playing Chopin’s Waltz. I was immediately struck by it. For me, he is the greatest, the most consummate musician,” he said.
He also names Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven as composers whose music he particularly loves. At the Proms in London on 29 July, he will be playing Beethoven.
Speaking about his next step in the future, Yunchan told The Guardian, “I want to play challenging large-scale works, pieces that have great meaning in classical music history.”
Currently, the 20-year-old is working on Bach’s Goldberg Variations as well as Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto.
But he also plans to learn contemporary music though he no longer composes himself due to lack of time, he says with regret.
“I want to be an artist who can play everything. I’d like to be a musician with infinite possibilities, just like the universe.”
With inputs from agencies
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