Seong-Jin Cho Seong-Jin Cho

Seong-Jin Cho (Korean: 조성진; born May 28, 1994) is a South Korean pianist. He rose to fame within South Korea and the international classical music world in 2015 after winning the XVII International Chopin Piano Competition, becoming the first South Korean pianist to do so.

Early life and education

Cho was born on May 28, 1994, in Seoul, South Korea. He began playing the piano at a young age and gave his first public recital when he was 12 years old. He graduated from Seoul Arts High School and studied at the Conservatoire de Paris as a student of Michel Béroff.

Career

Cho has won the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition for Young Pianists (2008), the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition (2009), and Third Prizes in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia (2011) and the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv (2014).

He has performed in concert with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra (cond. Valery Gergiev), the French Radio, Czech, Seoul (all with Myung-whun Chung), Munich (cond. Lorin Maazel) and Ural (cond. Dmitry Liss) philharmonic orchestras, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (East Berlin) (cond. Marek Janowski), Russian National Orchestra (cond. Mikhail Pletnev) and Basel Symphony Orchestra (cond. Pletnev). He has toured Japan, Germany, France, Russia, Poland, Israel, China and the US. He has appeared at the Tokyo Opera, in Osaka, at the Moscow Conservatory and at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, including with recitals.

He has participated in numerous European festivals, including in St Petersburg, Moscow, Duszniki-Zdrój and Cracow, as well as festivals in New York and Castleton. As a chamber musician, he has been invited to work with the violinist Kyung Wha Chung. In 2017 he gave his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle replacing Lang Lang during parts of the Asia tour of the orchestra.

Awards

• 2008 - International Fryderyk Chopin Competition for Young Pianists - First Prize
• 2009 - Hamamatsu International Piano Competition - First Prize
• 2011 - International Tchaikovsky Competition (piano) - Third Prize
• 2014 - Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition - Third Prize
• 2015 - XVII International Chopin Piano Competition - First Prize