Robert Greenberg

Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author

In Praise of South Korean Pianism

Posted by Robert Greenberg on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018

During the course of some correspondence, my Patron Cory-Paul Allen mentioned his love for the piano playing of Yeol Eum Son. For those of you who are not familiar with her, she is a 32 year-old miracle (born 1986) from South Korea. Here’s a link to a live performance of her playing Chopin’s Etudes Op. 25.

Ignore, please, the handful of wrong notes she plays over the course of her 32-minute performance. This is the real world of live performance, a world in which mistakes are made. (Although based on her body language, Ms. Son is not so forgiving of herself.)

The fluffs make no difference. Yeol Eum Son’s artistry is what counts, and her artistry is superb. And in this, she is not alone. For a country of 50 million people, Korean’s presently make up a disproportionate percentage of some of the best young pianists currently plying their trade. I discussed my friend, the wonderful Joyce Yang (born 1986) in my first Dr. Bob Prescribes post. I hired three pianists to perform the piano excerpts for my “23 Greatest Solo Piano Works” course made for The Great Courses. Two of the three are South Korean: Woo Bin Park (born 1984) and Eun Joo Chung (born ca. 1984).

In October, 2015 South Korea’s Seong-Jin Cho, 21 years old at the time, won the 17th international Frederic Chopin piano competition in Warsaw. Two years later, in 2017, another South Korean pianist named Yekwon Sunwoo, 28 years old, won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.…

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