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Seong-Jin Cho

Ravel - The Piano Concertos w/BSO, Nelsons

Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: February 21, 2025

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Seong-jin Cho- Interview in 2010 (with English Subtitles)
Seong-Jin Cho / 2018 0104 V LIVE, Press Conference
Seong-Jin Cho | TEDxKoreaTechU
Seong-Jin Cho / 2018 1205 JTBC Newsroom
Piano Concerto in E minor, Op. 11 (final stage of the Chopin Competition 2015
1 Piano Concerto in G Major, M_ 83_ I_ Allegramente.  
2 II_ Adagio assai  
3 III_ Presto  
4 Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, M_ 82_ I_ Lento  
5 II_ Allegro  
6 III_ Tempo I  
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The music world is currently celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Seong-Jin Cho is marking the occasion with his most ambitious project since he was signed by Deutsche Grammophon, after winning the 2015 Chopin Competition. Renowned for his insightful readings of Ravel, he has recorded the composer’s complete solo piano music and two piano concertos. Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Works was released on 17 January to great critical acclaim and, in Cho’s home country of South Korea, achieved instant gold status.

Its companion release, Ravel: The Piano Concertos, in which the pianist is joined by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Andris Nelsons, comes out digitally and on CD today. Expect A deluxe edition presenting the complete recordings issued digitally and as a 3-CD box set coming soon. As well as some Vinyl releases.

Cho’s forthcoming marathon performance of the complete solo works at Carnegie Hall on 5 February will be livestreamed exclusively on STAGE+. Subscribers can also enjoy his showcase performance of a selection of this repertoire filmed at Berlin’s Siemens-Villa in autumn 2024.

While the Concerto for the Left Hand is a relatively recent addition to his repertoire, Seong-Jin Cho is very familiar with Ravel’s other work in the genre, having made his debuts with the Seoul Philharmonic (aged just 15) and the Berliner Philharmoniker (aged 23) in the Concerto in G major. Both works date from the latter years of Ravel’s career and are influenced by jazz and blues music.

Notoriously difficult to play, the Concerto for the Left Hand is notable for its dark sonorities, while the more lighthearted Concerto in G major achieves an exquisite combination of jazz and the Classicism of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. “For me,” says Cho, “the highlight of the Concerto in G is the second movement [Adagio assai] – the long piano solo at the beginning. It’s one of the most touching movements in the piano literature.”

The recordings were made live at Boston’s Symphony Hall with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Boston Globe hailed the way “Cho’s hand glided and bounced across the keyboard with confident grace and dynamic nuance” in the Concerto for the Left Hand.

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    Posted At: March 31, 2025
    GRAMOPHONE writes……Seong-Jin Cho has recently been celebrated for a series of Ravel marathons, single concerts in which he played the complete solo piano music in chronological order. If you don’t know the pianist, that might seem like grandstanding. But this fastidious musician is not a show-off – and the first of these new releases, which mirrors those concerts, has little swagger.True, as we’d expect fro...

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    Posted At: March 3, 2025
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    Posted At: February 21, 2025
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    Posted At: February 20, 2025
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    Posted At: February 11, 2025
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    Posted At: February 4, 2025
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    Posted At: January 28, 2025
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    Posted At: January 27, 2025
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    Posted At: January 16, 2025
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    Posted At: February 12, 2024
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  • Seong-Jin Cho discusses new Mozart recording with New York's WKCR
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    Seong-Jin Cho recently released his first Mozart recording, Piano Concerto No. 20 & Sonatas, on Deutsche Grammophon, boasting a dynamic interpretation of one of the composer's most powerful and dramatic piano concertos. The Korean pianist was fortunate that his earliest memories of Mozart were fixed by his parents' recordings of two of the composer's greatest operas: The Marriage of ...
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