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Yunchan Lim

Pianist Yunchan Lim became the youngest-ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022 when he was 18. Unassuming yet charismatic, he has been popular on South Korean social media and has been called classical music's answer to K-pop. Lim was born on March 20, 2004, in the Seoul suburb of Siheung. His parents enrolled him at a neighborhood music school when he was seven, and he was drawn to the piano after hearing albums of Chopin and Liszt that his mother had bought when she was pregnant. After making rapid progress, Lim enrolled in the high school of the Korean National University of the Arts in Seoul at 13. His teacher there was Minsoo Sohn, with whom Lim has worked ever since; he went on to the main program at the University and then, in 2023, was slated to move to the New England Conservatory of Music, where Sohn had become a professor. At first, Sohn discouraged Lim from entering competitions, believing that his student would not flourish under that kind of pressure, but later, he relaxed his advice somewhat, and Lim took second prize and the Chopin Special Award in the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists in 2018. That year, he also won third prize and an audience award at the Thomas & Evon Cooper International Competition, and in 2019, at age 15, he became the youngest-ever winner of the Isang Yun Competition in South Korea. In 2022, Sohn encouraged Lim to enter the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, one of the world's most prestigious piano competition events. Lim showed up in Fort Worth with his mother, who cooked him Korean food as he practiced up to 20 hours a day. In the finals, Lim played Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, one of the most difficult concertos in the repertory. Although he was dissatisfied with his performance, he won the gold medal, becoming the youngest player ever to do so. Videos of his Cliburn performances have garnered more than 12 million views on an online streaming service. Later that year, Lim was signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label and released his debut album with Korea's Gwangju Symphony Orchestra, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 ("Emperor"). Lim has performed with orchestras in both Korea (the Korea Symphony, Busan Philharmonic, and Suwon Philharmonic) and the U.S. (the Cleveland Orchestra and the Fort Worth Symphony). In 2023, he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, performing the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 with conductor James Gaffigan.
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Discography

10 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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