A Piano Prodigy Will Make His New York Philharmonic Debut
The Van Cliburn Competition, which some call the Olympics of piano playing, takes place every four years in Fort Worth, Texas, and it’s the sort of prestigious event that can launch careers and open doors to the grandest concert halls in the world. Last June the gold medal went to a prodigy from South Korea named Yunchan Lim, who, at 18, became the youngest ever to win the Cliburn. It was his powerful, technically flawless mastery of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 that did it. For critics who might have doubted whether a teenager could take on a magnum opus of such emotional complexity, this was their answer. So was the thunderous ovation that followed his performance, which has gone viral on YouTube.
“Texas audiences are the most passionate in the world,“ Lim told the New York Times after the competition. When he makes his New York Philharmonic debut next month at David Geffen Hall—in three sold-out concerts of the Rach 3—he may need to amend that statement.
This story appears in the April 2023 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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