Performances + Events
A new live recording of Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons (2025, Decca Classics) by pianist and NEC Concert Artist Yunchan Lim ’26 AD reached No. 1 on the Apple Classical Top 100 in September. In reviewing the recording NPR opined, “Only a few pianists have recorded the complete cycle, offering competent performances of these serviceable little pieces. But something unequalled is happening in a new live recording of The Seasons by the young sensation Yunchan Lim.” International Piano declared, “Few if any young pianists have shown such unfaltering assurance and never more so than when going against the conventional grain.”
Lim’s Chopin Études album (2024, Decca Classics), which reached No. 1 in December 2024, remained on the Apple Classical Top 100 last week at No. 37. That recording earned Lim the Diapason d’Or de L’année award in the Young Talent category from the French magazine Diapason. The album also won in the piano category of Gramophone’s Classical Music Awards, where Lim was recognized as Young Artist of the Year, and was included on the Boston Globe’s list of “the 10 best classical albums of 2024.” The Globe praised Lim for “performances of great thoughtfulness and inspiration.” With the Chopin recording, the “prodigiously gifted young pianist confirms he’s something special,” the Guardian said. Lim was named an Apple Music Classical Artist Ambassador in January 2024.
In 2022, at age 18, Lim became the youngest-ever winner of the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In September, he performed alongside his mentor, Minsoo Sohn ’99, ’01 GD, ’04 AD, in a concert celebrating the launch of The New England Conservatory Campaign for the Future of Music Education. Lim studies with Sohn in NEC’s prestigious Institute for Concert Artists.
