YUNCHAN LIM

2022 CLIBURN GOLD MEDALIST
AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER
WINNER OF AWARD FOR BEST PERFORMANCE OF A NEW WORK

ABOUT I VIDEOS I PHOTOS I BOOKING I TOUR

ABOUT

“Lim got to the soul of the piece.” — La Scena

“Lim is a one-in-a-million talent.” — Dallas Morning News

In June 2022, Yunchan Lim became the youngest person ever to win gold at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; his performances throughout showcased a “magical ability” and a “natural, instinctive quality” (La Scena) that astounded listeners around the world. As Jury Chair Marin Alsop expressed: “Yunchan is that rare artist who brings profound musicality and prodigious technique organically together.” The depth of his artistry and connection to listeners also secured him the Audience Award and Best Performance of a New Work.

Yunchan’s ascent to international stardom has been meteoric. His audacious Cliburn Semifinal Round performance of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes “created a buzz throughout the international piano community”—his “intelligent virtuosity and total immersion into Liszt’s idiom truly defined transcendental” (Gramophone). And his final Cliburn Competition appearance with Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 delivered the defining moment of the three-week event. One critic noted: “The applause that followed was endless: a star had emerged before our eyes” (Seen and Heard International); The Economist hailed him for making “each note crystalline, purposeful and often startlingly beautiful;” and The New York Times listed it as one of the Top 10 Classical Music Performances of 2022. The video of that performance trended globally on YouTube in the days after, reaching #24, and has now become the most-watched version of that piece on the platform, amassing over 10 million views in eight months.

Invitations from the most prestigious concert halls and orchestras immediately followed: recent and upcoming highlights across North America, Europe, and Asia include concerto engagements with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestras, and Orchestre de Paris; festival appearances at Aspen, Bravo! Vail, and Ravinia; and recitals for Carnegie Hall, Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Suntory Hall, and Seoul Arts Center, among other major stages. His debut with the New York Phil in May 2023 was named a Critics’ Pick by The New York Times, and led them to call his performance of the Rach 3 a “literal” dream: “the juxtaposition of precise clarity and expansive reverie; the vivid scenes and bursts of wit; the sense of contrasting yet organically developing moods; the endless and persuasive bendings of time—the qualities that tend to characterize nighttime wanderings of the mind.” As the Evening Standard noted following his Wigmore debut: “We’re at the start of something special.”

Born in Siheung, Korea, Yunchan Lim began piano lessons at age 7, when it was time to choose an after-school activity; he entered the Music Academy of the Seoul Arts Center the next year and quickly became immersed in his musical studies. He auditioned for and was accepted into the Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts at age 13, where he met his teacher and mentor, Minsoo Sohn. Yunchan entered the international music stage a year later, in 2018, winning second prize and the Chopin Special Award in his first-ever competition, the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists. Also that year, he stood out as the youngest participant in the Cooper International Competition, where he won both third prize and the audience prize, and was provided the opportunity to perform with the Cleveland Orchestra. The next year, 2019, brought more accolades, when, at the age of 15, he was the youngest to win Korea’s IsangYun International Competition, also taking home two special prizes.

Yunchan has previously performed across South Korea—including with the Korean Orchestra Festival, Korea Symphony, Suwon Philharmonic, and Busan Philharmonic Orchestras, among others—as well as in Madrid, at the invitation of the Korea Cultural Center in Spain. He participated in the recording of “2020 Young Musicians of Korea,” organized by the Korean Broadcasting System and released that November.

Speaking at a press conference after the Competition, Yunchan said, “I made up my mind that I will live my life only for the sake of music, and I decided that I will give up everything for music… I wanted my music to become deeper, and if that desire reached the audience, I’m satisfied.”