Taeguk Mun Wins Casals

Congratulations to cellist Taeguk Mun ’16, student of Laurence Lesser, who won the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition on September 13. A native of South Korea, the 20-year old performed in the winners’ concert and was presented with his award and an €8000 prize on Saturday night as part of the 48th Budapest International Music competition at the Hungarian Academy of Music.

He played Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A minor, op. 129, accompanied by the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Janos Kovacs.

Mun was born in 1994 in South Korea. He has been a prize winner of various competitions. the first-place winner of the Young Soloist Competition of the Queens Symphony (2010), the Juilliard School Pre-college Division Cello Concerto Competition (2009), the New York Music Competition, the Fourth International Competition for Youth (2007) in Oldenburg, Germany, and was grand prize winner of the National Sung-Jung Music Competition in Korea. He was also a prize winner in the Irving M. Klein International String Competition (2010) and the 6th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.

A total of 157 cellists from 38 countries and regions entered the Casals competition, which was last held 10 years ago for cello. Ninety four cellists participated in the preliminary round, 15 of them entered the semi-final, and seven were chosen for the finals.