Gramophone Followed by Diapason... Im Yunchan Named Young Musician of the Year

Pianist Lim Yunchan was selected as this year's 'Young Musician (Jeune Talent)' by the prestigious French classical music magazine Diapason, his agency Mok Production announced on the 18th.

Lim Yunchan received the Young Musician award at the 'Diapason d'Or de l'Annee' ceremony held on the 13th (local time).

Diapason is a world-renowned classical music magazine alongside the UK's Gramophone. Every month, Diapason awards the 'Diapason d'Or' to recordings that achieve outstanding artistic results, and at the end of each year, it selects the best recordings of the year in each category to present the 'Diapason d'Or de l'Annee'.

Yunchan Lim [Photo provided by Mok Production, (c) Shin-Joong Kim]

Lim Yunchan earned this honor with his album Chopin: Etudes, released in April this year under the Decca label. This album was selected as a winner of the Diapason d'Or in June.

Last month, at the Gramophone Awards, Lim Yunchan also became the first Korean performer to receive both the Piano Album Award and the Young Artist of the Year Award. With his debut studio album, Lim Yunchan has thus swept two major European classical music recording awards.

Currently, Lim Yunchan is fulfilling his concert schedule in the United States. From the 15th to the 17th, he performed Beethoven's Piano Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra in Ohio. The program featured Beethoven's Piano Concertos No. 1 and No. 5; Lim Yunchan's mentor, Professor Son Minsu of the New England Conservatory in Boston, USA, performed No. 1, while Lim Yunchan performed No. 5, the 'Emperor'. Lim Yunchan will perform with the Kansas City Symphony (conducted by Matthias Pintscher) and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Kazuki Yamada) before returning to Korea at the end of this month. On December 18, he will appear on the stage of the Seoul Arts Center, collaborating with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie conducted by Paavo J?rvi to perform Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2.