UCSB Arts & Lectures presents pianist Seong-Jin Cho

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents pianist Seong-Jin Cho, widely considered one of the most distinctive artists of his generation, making his Santa Barbara recital debut on Tues., Nov. 14, at 7 p.m. at Hahn Hall, Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road, Santa Barbara. Ticket holders can arrive an hour early for a pitch-perfect party with complimentary tastings of local wine Casa Dumetz Wines and cheese platters from C’est Cheese outside Hahn Hall. There are currently no tickets available for this event. Interested patrons are advised to contact the A&L ticket office for possible openings.

Piano star Seong-Jin Cho attracted worldwide attention in 2015 when he won the International Chopin Piano Competition, one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world. In his native South Korea, his concerts sell out in mere minutes and his multi-platinum album was the top-selling classical music release in a decade. Cho’s rapidly expanding career now brings him to the U.S., where he recently made several high-profile recital debuts, notably in a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall.

Program
Beethoven: Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, op. 13 (“Pathétique”)
Beethoven: Sonata No. 30 in E Major, op. 109
Debussy: La plus que lente, L. 121
Debussy: L’Isle Joyeuse, L. 106
Chopin: 4 Ballades

(Subject to change)

Watch Seong-Jin Cho perform and discuss Chopin’s Ballade No. 1.

With his overwhelming talent and natural musicality, Seong-Jin Cho is rapidly embarking on a world-class career. Born in 1994 in Seoul, Seong-Jin Cho Cho started studying the piano at 6 and gave his first public recital five years later. In 2008, at the age of 14, he won the first prize at the sixth Moscow International Frederick Chopin Competition. In 2009, he won the first prize at the seventh Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan, becoming the youngest winner in its history. He had won third Prize at the Tchaikovsky competition at age 17, four years before winning First Prize at the Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw.

Cho has performed with some of the world’s major orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Radio France Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, under renowned conductors such as Myung-Whun Chung, Lorin Maazel, Marek Janowski, Mikhail Pletnev, Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Recent engagements include concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov, Accademia Santa Cecilia di Roma and Valery Gergiev, Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev, Tokyo Philharmonic and Myung-Whun Chung, Orchestre de Paris and Tomás Netopil. Cho recently performed debut recitals at the Concertgebouw Recital Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonia, London International Piano series, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Prague Spring Festival, Klavier Festival Ruhr and Carnegie Hall’s main hall.

Since 2012, Cho has been living in Paris. After studying with Prof. S.R. Park, S.J. Shin in Seoul, he studied with Michel Béroff at Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique.

Seong-Jin Cho is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures.

Tickets are $40 for the general public and $9 for UCSB students (valid student ID required) (A Hann Hall facility fee will be added to each ticket price).

For tickets and more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or visitwww.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.

The Up Close & Musical series sponsor is Dr. Bob Weinman. The wine sponsor is Casa Dumetz Wines.

UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges the generous support of SAGE Publishing for its major corporate support of the 2017-18 season.