Yekwon Sunwoo

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Yekwon Sunwoo, 2017

Yekwon Sunwoo (born February 10, 1989 in Anyang ) is a South Korean concert pianist. As a 28-year-old and the first South Korean, Yekwon Sunwoo won the 15th Van Cliburn Piano Competition in Fort Worth , Texas in June 2017 .

education

Sunwoo started playing the piano at the age of eight. In 2004 he made his debut as a solo and orchestral pianist in Korea before moving to the USA in 2005 to study. Here he studied with Seymour Lipkin at the Curtis Institute of Music . He earned his bachelor's degree here, his master's degree from the Juilliard School with Robert McDonald and his artist diploma from the Mannes College of Music with Richard Goode . Sunwoo has been studying with Bernd Goetzke in Hanover since 2016 .

Prizes and awards

In honor of his late teacher Seymour Lipkin, Sunwoo performed Mozart's Piano Concerto in C major, KV 467, in the semifinals of the Cliburn competition. In addition to the Cliburn gold medal, Sunwoo won first prizes at the International German Pianist Prize 2015 in Frankfurt, 2014 at the Vendôme Prize within the Verbier Festival , 2013 at the Sendai International Music Competition and 2012 at the International William Kapell Piano Competition.

Concert activity

After winning the Cliburn competition, Sunwoo started the 2017-2018 season with appearances at the international festivals of Aspen , Grand Teton and Duszniki . Solo concerts have taken him to Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Vancouver. In the spring went on a concert tour of the United States with the National Orchestra of Cuba . In Europe, Sunwoo makes his concert debut in Great Britain with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Cristian Macelaru . This season he appears in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and other cities in Germany. He gives further concerts in Europe in Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid and Helsingborg. He will also give concerts in Asia including Beirut, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.

In previous concert seasons, Sunwoo has appeared as a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop , the Juilliard Orchestra under Itzhak Perlman , the Houston Symphony Orchestra under James Feddeck , the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and Nicholas McGegan , the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra and other orchestras.

Passionate chamber musicians, the Jerusalem and Brentano String Quartet , the violinists Benjamin Beilman and Ida Kafavian , the cellists Edgar Moreau , Gary Hoffman and Peter Wiley and the pianist Anne-Marie McDermott are among his partners.

Music publications

The record label Decca Gold released the sound carrier Cliburn Gold 2017 two weeks after winning Cliburn . This includes his award-winning performances of Ravel's La valse and Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Sonata.

Rating

Yekwon Sunwoo was celebrated at the Cliburn competition for "his smooth, tender movements in quiet passages" and "his total mastery of the instrument and his expressive playing". Sunwoo is a "powerful and virtuoso performer who, in his own words," strives for the truth and pure beauty of music "and hopes to be able to convey these fundamental emotions to the audience."

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ San Francisco Examiner, quoted in German translation from: The Cliburn 2017
  2. ^ Translation of the quotation from the American from: The Cliburn 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Sunwoo, Yekwon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South Korean pianist
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1989
PLACE OF BIRTH Anyang