Lim Yunchan performs Rachmaninoff on fourth day of Seoul concert series — Korea Herald
South Korean pianist Lim Yunchan and conductor Marin Alsop performed Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Seoul Arts Center. The concert took place on the fourth day of a series of five performances, and the audience welcomed the musicians with a standing ovation. As an encore, Lim performed Edward Elgar’s “Salut d’amour.”
As Korea Herald reports, the musicians returned to the work they had played in the final of the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, United States. Lim was 18 years old at the time, and a YouTube video of that performance of Rachmaninoff’s concerto has received more than 20 million views.
Five consecutive performances
The tour schedule sparked discussion among some of the pianist’s supporters. They cautioned that performing this demanding concerto for five consecutive evenings after three performances of the same work in the United States was an excessive workload. Lim responded on Instagram that he, the conductor and the orchestra had made the decision on the concert series voluntarily.
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Alsop said during a screening of a documentary about her in Seoul that the pianist had become more mature since the competition and that there was more calmness in his playing. According to her, each of the first three concerts in South Korea differed from the previous one.
Orchestra program
In the second half of the concert, the Philadelphia Orchestra performed Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1 and the 1919 suite from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Firebird” without the soloist. The ensemble then also performed Antonín Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance No. 1 in C major as an encore.
The performances in South Korea marked the Philadelphia Orchestra’s tenth visit to the country and the start of its 2026 Asian tour. The ensemble will next travel to China, where it will give concerts in Haikou and Beijing with pianist Haochen Zhang, as well as hold residency events in Shenzhen and Shanghai.
