In Lim Yunchan's Mozart, the left hand carries the feeling

Pianist Lim Yunchan closed a five-concert, all-Mozart tour of Japan and Korea at Lotte Concert Hall on Monday, alongside Camerata Salzburg under Masato Suzuki. The collaboration was Lim's own idea. The 22-year-old, who in 2022 became the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, proposed the series to Camerata Salzburg, the ensemble long resident at the Salzburg Festival and Mozart Week, on a single condition: that the music be all Mozart. The program paired two concert

2026-06-16 18:46:04:00

Michael Sanderling finds a common 'soul' in Sibelius, Tchaikovsky

When Michael Sanderling returns to South Korea this month with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, he will lead the Swiss ensemble from a podium he reached via an unlikely route: nearly two decades as a principal cellist and not a single conducting lesson. The 59-year-old German conductor spent nearly 20 years as a principal cellist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra before he turned to conducting full time. Those years in the orchestra, he says, allow him

2026-06-15 14:31:54:00

Choi Jung-wha, who carried Korea's image abroad for 40 years, dies at 70

Choi Jung-wha, the first Korean to work as an international conference interpreter and a decades-long champion of the country's image abroad, died Sunday of breast cancer. She was 70. She built her career on the conviction that Korea could be explained to the world — and did much of the explaining herself. She interpreted for a succession of South Korean presidents, oversaw more than 1,800 international conferences, and in 2003 founded the Corea Image Communication Institute to shape how the cou

2026-06-14 17:22:37:00

Teacher behind Korean violin stars doesn't believe in 'prodigy'

When violinist Kim Seo-hyun, one of Korea’s most promising young musicians, won the rookie prize at the 14th Daewon Music Awards on June 8, the 17-year-old took a moment to thank her teacher. “I am deeply grateful to my teacher Lee Sunny, who guided me to express my inner self through music and taught me with passion, never setting any limits on me,” she said at the prestigious ceremony, where composer Chin Un-suk received the grand prize and pianist Sunwoo Ye-kwon won the performance prize. The

2026-06-13 16:00:00:00

Three classical musicians united by Beethoven and K-pop

In January 2023, violinist Daniel Lozakovich and cellist Gautier Capucon shared a Paris stage with Blackpink, performing alongside the K-pop group at a televised charity gala hosted by French first lady Brigitte Macron. This month, the two meet again — in Seoul, and for Beethoven. They join pianist Helene Mercier, conductor Mikhail Pletnev and the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra for the Triple Concerto at the Classical Bridge International Music Festival, marking the orchestra’s Korean debu

2026-06-08 15:06:20:00

Samso summit

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang capped his first day in Seoul on Friday with a "samso" gathering — samgyeopsal, or grilled pork belly, washed down with soju — joining SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin at Hyeongnim Jeoyo, a barbecue restaurant near Hongik University Station in Mapo-gu. Crowds packed the surrounding Hongdae streets for a glimpse of the Nvidia chief, who handed out snacks to onlookers and hammed it up for cameras — at one point pr

2026-06-05 22:15:02:00

Jensen Huang and Faker meet, celebrate mutual rise

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang began his five-day Korea visit Friday not in a boardroom but in a packed Hongdae gaming cafe, paying tribute to the Korean gaming culture he says built his company. Fans clutching phones had massed outside T1 Base Camp, a "PC bang," or internet gaming cafe, run by esports organization T1 in the Hongik University area of western Seoul. Staff held them back from the corridor and EDM pulsed through the venue. Huang, fresh off his 1 p.m. arrival at Gimpo International Airport

2026-06-05 17:27:39:00

Nvidia's Jensen Huang to make Faker his first stop in Seoul

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will head straight from the airport to a Seoul gaming cafe Friday to meet Faker, the League of Legends icon he once cheered for from the stage. Huang, set to land at Gimpo International Airport at around 1 p.m., will visit T1 Base Camp, a "PC bang," or internet gaming cafe, run by esports organization T1, according to industry sources — making the gaming powerhouse his first stop ahead of a dinner with the country's top business leaders. There he will meet T1's League of

2026-06-05 10:41:08:00

Pianist Sun Youl cut his practice in half — and started asking why

When Sun Youl arrived in France to study, his new teacher had an unusual request: promise not to practice more than three hours a day. The teacher, French pianist Olivier Gardon, had a question for him too: If you play perfectly, without a single mistake, what are you actually getting out of it? What is all the practice even for? "The question landed like a hard blow to the head. I realized I had been running like a machine, without even knowing why I practice," Sun told reporters in a roundtabl

2026-06-04 14:58:12:00

Classical Bridge turns theme of connection into a family affair

This year's Classical Bridge International Music Festival turns its founding idea —connection — into something the audience can watch unfold onstage. Cellist Mischa Maisky will perform alongside his son and daughter, and Geneva-born violist Lyda Chen will watch her teenage son make his Korean debut. "I'll have the privilege to listen to my own son perform for the first time in Korea. It's his debut," said Chen, the daughter of pianist Martha Argerich. The festival, she added, is "that bridge for

2026-06-02 14:30:29:00