With an overwhelming talent and innate musicality, Seong-Jin Cho is rapidly embarking on a world-class career and considered one of the most distinctive artists on the current music scene. His thoughtful and poetic, assertive and tender, virtuosic and colorful playing can combine panache with purity and is driven by an impressive natural sense of balance.

Seong-Jin Cho was brought to the world’s attention in 2015 when he won the First Prize at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw. This same competition launched the careers of world-class artists such as Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, or Krystian Zimerman.

In January 2016, Seong-Jin signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The first recording was released in November 2016 featuring Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.1 with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda and the Four Ballades. A solo Debussy recital was then released in November 2017, followed in 2018 by a Mozart album featuring sonatas and the D minor concerto with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick-Nézet-Seguin. All albums won impressive critical acclaim worldwide.

An active recitalist, he performs in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls such as the main stage of Carnegie Hall as part of the Keyboard Virtuoso series, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in the Master Pianists series, Berlin Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal (Berliner Philharmoniker concert series), Konzerthaus Vienna, Suntory Hall, Walt Disney Hall Los Angeles, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Liederhalle Stuttgart, La Roque d’Anthéron Festival, Verbier Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Rheingau Festival among several other venues.

During the next two seasons, he will play debut recitals in at venues including the main hall of Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Helsinki’s Musikkitalo, Washington’s Kennedy Center, Duke Performances in Durham, North Carolina, Victoria Hall Geneva, Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall Manchester and return to Suntory Hall, Konzerthaus Vienna, and Verbier Festival.

Recent and upcoming orchestral appearances include debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic with Simon Rattle, the Gewandhaus Orchester and Antonio Pappano, London Philharmonic with Edward Gardner, New York Philharmonic and Jaap van Zweden, Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with Mariss Jansons, Mahler Chamber Orchestra with Jakub Hrusa, Hong Kong Philharmonic with Jaap van Zweden, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with Manfred Honeck, Boston Symphony Orchestra with Hannu Lintu and return invitations to the London Symphony Orchestra with Gianandrea Noseda, the Munich Philharmonic with Valery Gergiev, the Staatskapelle Dresden with Myung-Whun Chung, the Finnish Radio Orchestra with Hannu Lintu. He will also go on tour with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer, the LSO and Simon Rattle, the LPO and Edward Gardner, the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Marek Janowski or the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick-Nézet-Seguin. As part of the 2020 Beethoven year celebrations, Seong-Jin will play all five Beethoven concertos in three days with the Dresdner Philharmonie and Marek Janowski.

Born in 1994 in Seoul, Seong-Jin Cho started learning the piano at 6 and gave his first public recital at age 11. In 2009, he became the youngest-ever winner of Japan’s Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. In 2011, he won Third Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the age of 17. In 2012, he moved to Paris to study with Michel Béroff at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique from which he graduated in 2015. He is now based in Berlin.