Seong-Jin Cho

»Seong-Jin Cho is truly a master who brings sound structures to life through the finest nuances of color and differentiated touch. Yet he is also a brilliant juggler who preserves the lightness of the Baroque while fully exploiting the possibilities of the modern piano to give the music radiance and a new dimension.« The Times, review of The Handel Project It is the combination of intellectual depth and expression through which Seong-Jin Cho touches his audience. The musical maturity and artistic abilities of the award-winning pianist have earned him broad acclaim from both audiences and critics. The Wall Street Journal hailed him as a »master of the virtuoso miniature,« but he received just as much applause for his expressive interpretations of concertos and major solo works by various composers from Mozart to Shostakovich. Exclusive interviews with Seong-Jin Cho Watch on STAGE+ The South Korean pianist shot to global fame when he won first prize at the 17th International Chopin Competition in October 2015. When Deutsche Grammophon immediately released recordings of Cho’s competition performances, the pure Chopin album soared to number 1 on the South Korean pop charts based on pre-orders alone. Within a week of its release in November 2015, it achieved triple-platinum sales in South Korea and soon garnered a worldwide fan base. In January 2016, Cho signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. His first studio album for the yellow label, released in November 2016, featured even more Chopin – the four Ballades and Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda. Cho’s next album, with an all-Debussy program, was released in November 2017 to mark the composer’s 100th birthday in 2018. In addition to the two series of Images, he played L’Isle joyeuse, Suite bergamasque, and Children’s Corner. A year later, Cho’s Mozart album followed, featuring Sonatas K 281 and K 332, as well as Concerto No. 20 in D minor K 466 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The album The Wanderer, released in May 2020, begins with Schubert’s monumental »Wanderer Fantasy« D 760 and concludes with Liszt’s legendary Sonata in B minor, a work whose scale and complexity reveal the influence of the »Wanderer Fantasy.« In between is Berg’s Piano Sonata Op. 1, which in turn owes a debt to Liszt. On the album Im Abendrot, Seong-Jin Cho can be heard alongside Matthias Goerne, one of the world’s most renowned lieder singers. Released in April 2021, it features late Romantic works by Wagner, Pfitzner, and Richard Strauss. In the same year, Cho also collaborated again with the LSO and Gianandrea Noseda to delve deeper into Chopin’s music. Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 · Scherzi was released in August 2021, with three additional solo tracks on the digital version: the »Revolutionary Etude« Op. 10 No. 12, the Impromptu Op. 29, and the Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. Seong-Jin Cho turned to the Baroque with the album The Handel Project, released in February 2023. Cho selected three pieces from Handel’s first collection of Suites de pièces pour le clavecin and paired them with Brahms’ Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. In 2025, Seong-Jin Cho’s focus will be on the music of Ravel. He will honor the composer’s 150th birthday with recordings of all his solo piano works and both concertos. Ravel: Complete Solo Piano Works was released in January (»Ravel interpretations of such unique detail are rare« – Financial Times) and immediately achieved gold status in South Korea. Its counterpart, Ravel: The Piano Concertos, in which the pianist is accompanied by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, will be released on February 21. A deluxe edition with all recordings will be available digitally and as a 3-CD set from May 2. Ravel also plays a significant role in his tour calendar. Cho will perform recitals of the complete solo piano works in February and March as part of an extensive US tour (with appearances at Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall), and in April and May at both London’s Barbican Centre and in Germany (including Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and – as Artist in Residence – the Berlin Philharmonie). He will perform Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Cleveland Orchestra in February and March, and in July, he will play both the Piano Concerto in G major and the Concerto for the Left Hand with Nelsons and the BSO at Tanglewood, as well as a recital of the complete solo piano works. Further dates in Asia and the US will follow in the summer. Highlights of this season also include his debut as Artist in Residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker performing Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in Seoul with the Vienna Philharmonic and Nelsons; and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic (February 2025), Chicago Symphony Orchestra (February and March), and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich (May). Born in Seoul in 1994, Seong-Jin Cho began playing the piano at age six and made his public debut at age eleven. In September 2008, he won the 6th International Chopin Competition for Young Pianists in Moscow, and the following year, the International Hamamatsu Piano Competition in Japan. After moving to Paris in 2012 to study at the Conservatoire with Michel Béroff, he now resides in Berlin. His path to victory at the renowned International Chopin Competition was paved by third prizes at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 2011 and the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2014, as well as concert appearances with leading conductors and orchestras. Since then, Cho has regularly collaborated with prominent musicians such as Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Andris Nelsons, Vasily Petrenko, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Yuri Temirkanov, as well as top international orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra, Concertgebouworkest, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic. 2/2025