Discover the Next Generation of Classical Music: Kim Sun-wook’s Journey from Pianist to Conductor

(The CEN News) Reporter Nam Sa-woong

This recital opens the Seoul Arts Center’s The NEXT series for the year. Sponsored by Shinyoung Securities, the project gives promising young artists—those attracting attention on international stages—a solo platform and introduces them to Korean audiences.

This year the series has also grown in scale. It has moved from Inchun Art Hall to the larger Recital Hall, improving the performance environment and giving a new generation of musicians a broader stage on which to shape and present their musical visions.

On the program that day, Da-yun Yoo will juxtapose 20th‑century modern works with Romantic repertoire, presenting them as a single, cohesive program.

Schnittke’s sonata, often celebrated for its pluralistic language, lets distinct musical idioms coexist. Gentle melodies give way to sudden atonal intensity and then return to Romantic sensibility—a work that challenges both the performer’s interpretive imagination and technical control.

Ravel’s Sonata No. 2 follows, blending jazz rhythms and blues‑tinged color into classical forms. The result is an early‑20th‑century masterpiece in which piano and violin preserve individual personalities while engaging in a distinctive, conversational interplay.

Schoenberg’s Fantasia, written using the twelve‑tone method yet never abandoning lyricism, demands intense focus and stands as a touchstone of modernist repertoire. The final piece, an arrangement of Saint‑Saëns by Ysaÿe, closes the program with dazzling virtuosity and expressive sweep.

Sunwook Kim (born 1988) is one of South Korea’s most distinctive classical musicians. He began piano at age three, attended Yewon School, entered the Korea National University of Arts as an arts prodigy, and leapt onto the international stage in 2006 as the youngest—and the first Asian—winner in the history of the Leeds International Piano Competition.

His career at the keyboard is already notable. He has appeared regularly with leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, Dresden Staatskapelle, and the Radio France Philharmonic. He has completed major cycles such as the complete Beethoven sonatas and the Diabelli Variations, establishing himself as a distinguished Beethoven interpreter on stages across Korea and Europe.

His recording of Unsuk Chin’s piano concerto earned both the BBC Music Magazine award and the International Classical Music Award, bringing him recognition in the recording world as well.

Kim’s ambitions, however, were never confined to the keyboard. After moving to London, he quietly studied orchestral repertoire while earning a master’s degree in conducting at the Royal Academy of Music.

With the pandemic halting live performances in 2021, he finally took up the baton. He made his official conducting debut with the KBS Symphony Orchestra, and in 2022 he stepped in for former Seoul Philharmonic music director Osmo Vänskä after Vänskä suffered a fall—preparing in just one week and conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony from memory. Those moments underscored how long he had been preparing for a conducting career.

He served as artistic director of the Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra from 2024 through the end of 2025, continuing to develop his profile as a conductor.

“Since I began conducting, I no longer box myself into the labels ‘pianist’ or ‘conductor,’” he said. “The modes of expression differ, but ultimately what I want is to make music.”

The May 9 program centers on Beethoven and Brahms—two composers Kim has explored most deeply as both pianist and conductor.

Beethoven helped shape Kim’s musical identity. Over two years in Korea he performed all 32 Beethoven sonatas; that project was more than a milestone. It was a way for him to forge a musical philosophy through sustained engagement with repertoire.

Brahms is equally central to his story. Kim launched his professional career to critical acclaim with Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in the 2006 Leeds final, and in 2023 he returned to the same work with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, earning a standing ovation—making Brahms both a starting point and a recurring home for his artistry.

When a musician who has wrestled with Beethoven’s scores at the keyboard for decades lifts the baton to tell that same world through an orchestra, the interpretation gains layers and perspectives distinct from those of a conductor who took a more conventional path.

Photo: Courtesy of Seoul Arts Center

(The CEN News) Reporter Nam Sa-woong press@mhns.co.kr