19-Year-Old Pianist Kim Sehyun Wins Long-Thibaud, Releases Debuts Album ‘Chopin, Fauré’
Creatrip Team
21 days ago
Kim Sehyun, a 19-year-old rising pianist who won the Long-Thibaud competition (롱티보 콩쿠르) last year with unanimous jury support and multiple awards, held a press event on Aug. 24 to announce her debut album ‘Chopin, Fauré’ (Warner Classics). The album, partly pre-released in Korea and due worldwide on Sept. 4, pairs Chopin pieces including the 12 Etudes Op.25 and Nocturne Op.27-2 with works by Fauré that reflect his influence. Kim said she wrote haiku (short Japanese fixed-form poems) while studying Chopin’s etudes and now performs more freely according to inspiration. The recording also features a French chanson, “April in Paris” (arr. Weissenberg), as a tribute to Paris — a city central to her early European career after winning the Cleveland International Youth Piano Competition and later the Long-Thibaud. She will celebrate the album with recitals on Sept. 5 in Daegu and Sept. 6 at Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, performing Chopin, Fauré and Schubert’s Piano Sonata No.18 in G major, D.894. Kim is enrolled in a five-year dual degree program combining a master’s in piano performance at the New England Conservatory and a BA in English at Harvard, saying her study of literature informs her musical storytelling and may deepen her interpretations over time.
