Pianitst Sunwook Kim Concert

Date: Saturday, 8 May
Time: 19:30pm
Venue: Royal Festival Hall London
Ticket Prices: £38 £29 £23 £18 £14 £11 £8, Premium seats £45
Booking Info: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/

Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto was coolly received at its premiere, perhaps due in part to its understated virtuosity rather than the dazzling showmanship so often heard in works for piano and orchestra. Yet its second movement is emotionally profound with the piano and cellos finishing each other's musical sentences. Equally intense is the slow movement of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, of which Berlioz wrote, 'One is seized from the first bars, with an emotion that by the end becomes shattering in its intensity!' But both these pieces have finales which dissipate the emotional tension and humorously dance along to the end.

This evening's concert is supported by The Dowager Viscountess Rothermere.

About Sunwook Kim
21-year-old Sunwook Kim came to international recognition when he won the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006. The competition’s youngest winner for 40 years, as well as its first Asian winner, his performance for the finals of Brahms’s Concerto No.1 with Mark Elder attracted unanimous praise from the press, and led to concerto engagements with some of the UK’s finest orchestras as well as recitals throughout Europe.
Born in Seoul in 1988, Sunwook Kim began the piano at the age of 3. He gave his debut recital aged just 10 at the Kumho Prodigy Series in Seoul, and this was followed by his concerto debut two years later. Since then he has been a regular guest of Korea’s finest orchestras, including the Seoul Philharmonic and the KBS Symphony, both at home and on tour internationally.
Over the past season he has appeared as concerto soloist in the subscription series of the London Philharmonic (Vassily Sinaisky), Hallé Orchestra (Mark Elder), BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Tadaaki Otaka), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, as well as on tour in Korea with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Janowski), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Myung-Whun Chung), Budapest Festival Orchestra (Ivan Fischer) and the BBC Philharmonic (Gianandrea Noseda).
Recent recital appearances include a highly successful Brussels debut at the Klara Festival, the Beethovenfest Bonn, Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele in Germany, the Aspen Music Festival in the USA, New York’s International Keyboard Institute, the Duszniki Zdrój International Chopin Festival in Poland as well as the Tongyeong International Music Festival and Kumho Rising Stars Series in Korea.
Future concerto engagements include the Philharmonia Orchestra (Ashkenazy), Hallé Orchestra (Elder), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (M-W Chung), BBC Philharmonic (Noseda), Bournemouth Symphony (Karabits), Tokyo Philharmonic (W-H Chung), Seoul Philharmonic (Mikko Franck) and the KBS Symphony (Hubert Soudant). Highlights among recital appearances include debuts at the Wigmore Hall, London, and the Vancouver Chopin Society.