Gramophone Award winner Yunchan Lim stays humble despite all the accolades

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Gramophone Award winner Yunchan Lim stays humble despite all the accolades

Published: 03 Oct. 2024, 15:34

Pianist Yunchan Lim poses with his two awards for the Gramophone Classical Music Awards in the piano and Young Artist of the Year categories after the ceremony in London on Wednesday. [GRAMOPHONE]

Pianist Yunchan Lim exhibited two qualities after winning his two awards at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards on Wednesday: gratitude and humility.

“My music and I are extremely lucky to have the people around me,” he told the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Lim won the piano category with a recording of Chopin’s “Études Opp. 10 and 25,” which was released last April. He also received the special Young Artist of the Year award. Lim made history as the first Korean pianist to ever receive a Gramophone award.

“To me, making music means expressing everything that I’ve experienced, heard and felt in my life, including the smallest things,” Lim continued. “Starting from my parents’ way of speaking, which you could say was the first type of music I ever encountered after I was born, everything I’ve ever seen, heard, felt and experienced is reflected in my music.

“The people who should receive a big award are my family, teachers, agency, the greatest artists and my friends.”

Chopin’s études are considered the epitome of Romantic piano music from the 19th century and is notorious for being technically demanding for pianists.

“Now 20, Yunchan Lim is a pianist whose flair and probing musicianship are supported by phenomenal technique,” Gramophone wrote on its website. In a review for the album back in May, Gramophone praised it “as flexible and feather-light as it is fluent and fiery, as compelling in its sense of structure as in its relishing of detail.”

Three finalists were listed in the piano category this year, and two of them were Lim’s recordings, including Liszt’s “Études d'exécution transcendante, S. 139.” This also makes Lim the first pianist to ever be nominated for two albums in the same category at the Gramophone awards.

Pianist Yunchan Lim gives a piano performance after winning Young Artist of the Year during the Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony in London on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Launched in 1977 by the prominent English classical music magazine Gramophone, the awards are oftentimes nicknamed the "Oscars of classical music." There are a total of 11 categories, including voice and ensemble, instrumental, contemporary, orchestral, opera, chamber, choral, concerto, and of course, piano.

Only two Korean musicians have won Gramophone awards in the past: violinist Kyung Wha Chung in the 1990 chamber and 1994 concerto categories, and cellist Chang Han-na in the 2003 concerto category.

The Young Artist of the Year title is given to young musicians who have had notable achievements. Korean American violinist Sarah Chang won the award in 1993 at the age of 12.

Lim first rose to fame in 2022 after becoming the youngest ever winner, at 18 years old, of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He is currently enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and is touring internationally.

Lim is set to perform in regions throughout Europe, including Poland, Greece and Serbia. Afterward, he will have 10 concerts in the United States for about a month until early December.

On Nov. 28 and 30 and Dec. 1 and 2, Lim will perform with the New York Philharmonic for Chopin’s “Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21.”

Then he will return to Korea to continue to the play the piece with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, led by Estonian American conductor Paavo Jarvi, for five concerts from Dec. 17 to 22.

Gramophone’s Recording of the Year was given to American violinist Hilary Hahn with her album, “Ysaye: Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op. 27.” Artist of the Year was given to English soprano Carolyn Sampson, and Orchestra of the Year to the Czech Philharmonic.

BY CHO MOON-GYU,KIM HO-JEONG [kjdculture@joongang.co.kr]