Seong-jin Cho
PIANO
“Cho appears to have the musical potential to take his place alongside the greats of the past.”
Photo credit: Christoph Köstlin
With an innate musicality and overwhelming talent, Seong-Jin Cho has established himself worldwide as one of the leading pianists of his generation and most distinctive artists on the current music scene. His thoughtful and poetic, assertive and tender, virtuosic, and colourful playing can combine panache with purity and is driven by an impressive natural sense of balance.
Seong-Jin Cho was brought to the world’s attention in 2015 when he won First Prize at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw, and his career has rapidly ascended since. In early 2016, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and in 2023 Cho was awarded the prestigious Samsung Ho-Am Prize in the Arts, in recognition of his exceptional contributions to the world of classical music. An artist high in demand, Cho works with the world's most prestigious orchestras including Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Conductors he regularly collaborates with include Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Simon Rattle, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Lahav Shani.
Highlights of Seong-Jin Cho’s 2023/24 season include his anticipated debut at the Salzburger Festspiele with the Mozarteumorchester and Ivor Bolton, and his return to London’s BBC Proms with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Santtu-Matias Rouvali. He notably returns to the Concertgebouworkest, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra, giving performances in both Boston and Carnegie Hall, and makes anticipated debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. A highly sought-after touring soloist, Cho embarks on several international tours, including with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko in Korea, and with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Andris Nelsons in Korea and Japan. He also performs with the National Symphony Orchestra Washington and Gianandrea Noseda throughout Europe in Spring 2024.
An active recitalist very much in demand, Seong-Jin Cho appears in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls including the main stage of Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berliner Philharmonie, Musikverein Wien, Konzerthaus Wien, Prinzregententheater München, Barbican London, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Walt Disney Hall Los Angeles, Festival International de piano de la Roque d'Anthéron, and Verbier Festival. During the coming season he is engaged to perform solo recitals at halls including the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, KKL Luzern, Sala Santa Cecilia, Megaron Athens and Carnegie Hall.
Seong-Jin Cho's latest recording is his solo album entitled The Handel Project, released in February 2023, and in August 2021, he released Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Scherzi with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda for Deutsche Grammophon. He had previously recorded his first album with the same orchestra and conductor featuring Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 as well as the Four Ballades. His solo album titled The Wanderer was released in May 2020 and features Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy, Berg’s Piano Sonata op. 1 and Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor. A solo Debussy recital was also released in November 2017, followed by a Mozart album with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2018. All albums have been released on the Yellow Label and have garnered impressive critical acclaim worldwide.
Born in 1994 in Seoul, Seong-Jin Cho started learning the piano at the age of six and gave his first public recital aged 11. In 2009, he became the youngest-ever winner of Japan’s Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. In 2011, he won Third Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the age of 17. From 2012-2015 he studied with Michel Béroff at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Seong-Jin Cho is now based in Berlin.
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Charlotte Lee
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“Cho has been elevated straight to the big time.”
“Cho paints with transparency and exuberance … his playing is riveting as ever.”
“He is on the threshold of a major career.”
“Cho is a master. He displayed an impressive variety of tonal colors and remarkable technique, dispatched with jaw-dropping panache. He had something to say and communicated it well.”
“Cho appears to have the musical potential to take his place alongside the greats of the past. He has earned praise, not only for his bulletproof technique, but also for his artistic voice: his sense of drama, his natural nobility and his youthfully searching interpretations.”
“In its elegant command of narrative structures, Cho’s recording of the Chopin Ballades bears a resemblance to Zimerman’s, but Cho’s readings are also enlivened by a freshness of detail.”
“Cho plays not only with panache but with depth and sensitivity. Many young competition phenoms excel at the whiz-bang parts; Cho shone in the dreamy second movement, spinning it out into a long building fantasy that one didn’t want to end.”
“Cho is clearly a thoughtful and assertive artist.”
“What Cho boasts, as old-fashioned as this may sound, is a poetic sensibility that evokes the fantastical sound world of the early Romantics. He deployed his technique, panache and his elusive expressive manner to create a new sound world again and again.”
“Don’t let the competition medal fool you. This guy’s an artist.”
“Everything is poetic, introspective, graceful.”
“Cho is among the consummate artists performing today, destined to be among the pantheon of legends.”
“Cho may be among the greats.”
“There are already moments in Cho’s performances that have a sense of something really special. In this recital, the first of them came at the end of the Chopin F Minor Fantasy, when the music seemed to be suspended in mid-air on a gossamer thread of sound; the Four Mazurkas, Op. 33 too seemed to inhabit a world that Cho had imagined just for them.”
“Cho has an enviable ability to make every note sound distinct and clear, shaping and balancing each phrase perfectly… He superbly demonstrated his understanding of Chopin’s stated intent: ‘calm and melancholy, giving the impression of a thousand happy memories. It’s a kind of moonlight reverie on a beautiful spring evening.”
“His sound was lucid and shimmering …”