An unforgettable performance sheds light on a booming star and a market that can’t keep up without corporate backup
Star pianist Lim Yunchan performed with the Orchestra of Fondazione Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia last week, marking the Italian ensemble’s first visit to Korea in eight years and its debut here under conductor Daniel Harding.
Curiously, despite featuring one of Korea’s most celebrated musicians, the orchestra’s official tour schedule listed only a single public concert despite arriving after multiple engagements a total of nine concerts in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. This raised an inevitable question: why would an ensemble — once led by Korean maestro Chung Myung-whun — featuring pianist with such strong local demand appear just once?
In reality, Lim performed three times in Seoul, but the other two evenings were exclusive private galas funded by corporate sponsors — one by Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance on Wednesday and another by Shinhan Bank, the nation’s largest commercial bank, on Friday. While Thursday’s public concert was partially sponsored by Genesis, Hyundai Motor’s luxury brand, it remained the only opportunity for the majority of Lim’s domestic fans.
Thursday's public concert made clear why Lim is the most sought-after musician of the moment. But the fact that the other two performances were closed corporate events underscored a deeper reality: Korea’s classical music market remains chronically constrained. In an ecosystem dominated by private presenters, major international orchestras often need to schedule at least three concerts per visit to break even -- a scale of economics that leaves little room for profit and even less for broad public access.
Concerts featuring star musicians like Lim or Cho Seong-jin are among the few programs that presenters can stage without worrying about financial losses.
“For most concerts, there are significant risks when presenters rely solely on ticket sales. It is safer to secure the bulk of performances in advance — often through corporate bookings — which inevitably leaves only a limited number of concerts available to the general public,” Anna Roh, a critic and professor at the Graduate School of Cultural Policy Studies at Sookmyung Women’s University, told The Korea Herald on Monday.
“The market simply isn’t large enough to avoid this situation, and public institutions play a limited role in supporting these kinds of concerts. Even selling premium tickets priced at 500,000 to 550,000 won ($340-374), presenters still need corporate support to make a profit,” the professor noted.
Another industry expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted that hosting performances by world-renowned orchestras is rarely profitable for local venues. “At the moment, with the Korean won weakening sharply against major currencies, many concerts are probably operating at a loss. Yet they have to continue — sometimes for symbolic reasons, and sometimes to maintain relationships and networks,” the expert said, adding, “I used to think this system was somewhat distorted, but it’s clear the market simply needs to grow.”
Since winning the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, Lim’s reputation has grown at unprecedented speed. Each new program has exceeded expectations, astonishing audiences with bold repertoire choices and artistic maturity far beyond his years. Thursday’s performance was no exception.
He introduced Korean audiences to Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major at last, navigating its volatile mix of elegance and jazz-driven syncopation with fearless control.
However, the performance was not without disturbance. As Lim entered the “Adagio assai,” the concerto’s rapt second movement, where the piano’s solitary voice draws listeners into a nostalgic haze, a loud noise suddenly broke the spell.
At first, the audience reacted with confusion and growing irritation, realizing that the sound resembled a phone call blasted through a speaker. Moments later, an audience member seated in the sixth row of the second section from the left stood up and walked out, still broadcasting what turned out to be a YouTube video, without turning the device off.
Lim briefly turned his head toward the disturbance, but his playing never faltered; he held the line of the music with unwavering poise.
But that was not the only disruption. After the concerto concluded, another phone rang. This time, several members of the orchestra exchanged glances, their disbelief briefly visible, while audible sighs rippled through the audience.
The disruptions did not stop Lim from returning for a double encore, during which he revealed a different facet of his artistry with his own arrangement of “Autumn Leaves” and came back with Korngold’s “Die schone Nacht.”
After the concert, the presenter took to Instagram to address the incident. While pledging to strengthen its audience-etiquette campaigns, the presenter clarified that the disruptive audience member had purchased their own ticket amid the speculation that they were a corporate invitee, perhaps sensing growing frustration among Lim’s fans over the lack of public concerts.
On the positive side, corporate dependency may have a silver lining. The corporate events might have offered many first-time listeners a chance to hear the 21-year-old pianist live and spark a potential interest in classical music — just as some who attended primarily for Lim might have discovered the distinctive sound and allure of the Harding-led orchestra.
The intensity of the first half carried smoothly into the second, with the orchestra, presenting Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27 and an encore of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino sinfonia, sustaining the evening’s momentum.
gypark@heraldcorp.com
