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Seong-Jin Cho shot to fame after winning first prize at the 17th Chopin International Piano Competition in 2015. Since then, Cho has played the Chopin concertos many times, but he is beginning to shine in other repertoire.
Cho is keen to find new details in music, especially in the Chopin Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, which he performed in the finals of the Chopin Competition. “I always try to discover new timing, different nuances,” Cho explains. “Chopin wrote this concerto when he was 20 years old, so it’s a different kind of romanticism than that of Mahler, for instance. Of course it’s very romantic, but it’s from a young perspective.”
That precociousness is something Cho might relate to. He began playing piano at the age of six, and gave his first recital at 11. In September 2008, Cho, who was then a teenager, won the Sixth Moscow International Frederick Chopin Competition for Young Pianists. The following year he took first prize at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan. In 2012, he moved to France to study with French pianist and conductor Michel Béroff at the Paris Conservatoire. Cho currently lives in Berlin when he’s not on tour. “I counted at least 100 days a year I’m actually there,” he says. “But Berlin is an ideal city to live in for musicians because of the rich culture in terms of music; there are so many great orchestras.”
He speaks effusively about a performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony he attended in late March; featuring the Staatskapelle Berlin and led by Sir Simon Rattle, the program opened with a 2018 work by British composer Harrison Birtwistle. “Sometimes when I see interesting programs I get very inspired,” Cho says, “and it influences my own recital programs.”
His recitals this year offer an ambitious mix of sounds, including Brahms, Schumann, Ravel, contemporary composer Sofia Gubaidulina, and Handel, the latter referencing Cho’s latest album, The Handel Project. Released in February, the work highlights the composer’s keyboard works and includes Brahms’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24. “I always wanted to learn and play baroque music, and I thought Handel was a good place to begin,” the pianist explains. In a March 2023 review for La Scena Musicale, writer Pietro Freiburger praised Cho’s sound on the album as “extremely delicate and rich in nuances.”
Selections from the album will be performed as part of upcoming recital tours in Spain, Switzerland, and South Korea through June and July. The summer months also see Cho tour with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and perform with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and give chamber concerts with cellist Kian Soltani.
The three modes of performance—solo, chamber, and orchestral—are all part of a larger approach. “A concerto is a bigger version of chamber music to me,” he explains, “and when I play a solo recital I think about symphonies, and I try to think of myself as a conductor. For example, Chopin is operatic, but Beethoven’s writing is very symphonic: you can hear what woodwind here, or brass or strings there. I think various forms of music-making are all connected.”
That sense of connection expanded earlier this year when Cho worked with conductor Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic to present the world première of Études symphoniques, by French organist and composer Thierry Escaich at the Rudolfinum in Prague. “It was my first time playing a contemporary concerto,” Cho notes, “and it was totally different to anything I’d done.”
There were challenging moments in preparing Escaich’s work, but plenty of support as well. “I had no experience with this kind of music,” Cho recalls, “but Bychkov was so patient, and he gave me so many great pieces of advice. It was really a great experience, and I’d love to do more (contemporary work) in the future.” Cho and the Czech Phil will be performing it again at Munich’s Isarphilharmonie this September, with Bychkov leading the Münchner Philharmoniker. Throughout all of his creative pursuits, Cho hopes to keep his creative curiosity fresh. “I am a music lover even before I am a pianist.”
Cho is set to perform Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain on Aug. 6 at Festival de Lanaudière.
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About Lanaudière Festival
Canadian classical music will make a home for itself in Joliette, Que., from July 7 to Aug. 6. The festival will include 14 concerts at the beautiful Amphithéâtre Fernand-Lindsay, and a variety of other performances at the town’s churches, outdoor cultural venues and agritourism sites. The OSM and Rafael Payare will open the festival with a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (July 7), and will return the following night to pay homage to the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninoff’s birth (July 8). William Christie and Les Arts Florissants will present Handel’s Partenope (July 15). Canadian superstar conductor Yannick Nézet-Séquin and the Orchestre Métropolitain will play for festival audiences on July 28, 29, and Aug. 6. The festival’s mainstage offerings will contrast against the intimacy of events presented in the region’s churches, featuring the likes of Alisa Weilerstein, Andrew Wan and Charles Richard-Hamelin (July 11); William Christie and Emmanuel Resche-Caserta (July 17); and Angela Hewitt (July 27).
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