First-Prize Winner Changyong Shin: Bachauer & Hilton Head Piano Competition

Changyong Shin is the first-prize winner of the 2018 Bachauer International Piano Competition, the 2017 Seoul International Music Competition, and the 2016 Hilton Head International Piano Competition.

He received his Bachelor of Music and was awarded the Paul G. Mechlin Scholarship from the Curtis Institute of Music in May 2016. He is currently continuing his studies with Robert McDonald in the Masters program at The Juilliard School where he was awarded a full scholarship. Robert McDonald said, "Changyong Shin is a young artist of exceptional gifts—a brilliantly complete instrumentalist whose playing is always at the service of the music and its expressive possibilities."

His first album, released in 2018, debuted on the Steinway Label with a shimmering program that highlighted his passionate musicianship and astounding technique. His program at the Festival beings with Beethoven's Sonata in E Major, Op. 109, No. 30. The All Music Guide stated, "Few pianists of his age have grasped the depths of late Beethoven as Shin does. Not just a promising debut but an unusually good recording of these repertory works."

Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit is considered one of the most difficult pieces ever written for piano. After hearing fellow composer Balakirev's Islamay, Ravel decided that he could go one step further. Burton-Hill for the BBC wrote, "Gaspard has been described as a ‘triathlon' for a pianist, with finger-breaking effects in the first movement and dizzyingly fast repeated notes in the third."

Three of Chopin's most beautiful Waltzes follow after intermission, and the program concludes with Prokofiev's Sonata No. 8 in B-Flat Major, Op. 84, composed between 1939-1944. The Eighth Sonata is regarded as one of Prokofiev's greatest contributions to the genre, "the richest of all — an abundance of riches," according to the great pianist Sviatoslav Richter. The sonata has also been described by as "a masterwork of the 20th-century keyboard literature; it expands the sonata, not only in terms of structure but as a total concept; it is the equivalent of a large-scale symphony for piano."

Time: 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm.

Category: Arts.

Sub-Categories:
Arts | Performing Arts | Music,
Arts | Performing Arts.

Artist / Speaker: Changyong Shin (Piano).