From Bill's Desk

We regret to announce that Yundi has canceled his North American tour which included a stop at McCarter on April 25th. But even in the music world, every cloud has a silver lining, and the good news is that this cancellation is also a stroke of good fortune, since it has given us the chance to introduce the South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho.  Cho will make his McCarter debut on Wednesday, February 21, giving you an opportunity to both hear an exciting new talent and witness a career as it unfolds before your ears.

Born in 1994 in Seoul, Cho was the Gold Medalist at the 2015 Chopin International Competition in Warsaw and was already on my list for a future McCarter season. No stranger to international competitions, he was only 17 when he won Third Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011 (think Van Cliburn).  And as you might expect, he is already a superstar in his native South Korea, where his concerts sell out in minutes (think Lang Lang), and where the CD of his Chopin competition highlights created a frenzy - - it has sold an unprecedented 150,000 copies to date!  His second CD, Chopin’s First Piano Concerto with Noseda and the London Symphony, was released last fall, and will be followed this November by a solo Debussy album – three CDs in two years, not bad for a kid still in his twenties!

But Cho’s meteoric rise is no secret: Carnegie Hall took notice with a sold-out recital last season, followed by recitals in all the world’s most prestigious music venues (Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Paris, Tokyo, and Leningrad). And here’s the latest breaking news: Cho  has just been invited to join Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic this season on its tour of Germany and Asia, replacing the indisposed Lang Lang. Suffice it to say that invitations like that don’t come along every day!

At McCarter, Cho’s program will include two of Beethoven’s “greatest hits”, the Sonatas No. 13 (“Pathetique”) and No. 30, Op. 109; and works by the two composers featured on his most recent CD releases: Book 2 of Debussy’s Images; and the great Chopin Sonata No. 3 in b.

You will want to be there on February 21 so you can say one day “I heard him at McCarter when . . . “
Wwljr.