Yunchan Lim

Born in Siheung, South Korea, on March 20, 2004, Yunchan Lim is the youngest pianist ever to win the prestigious Van Cliburn Competition in 2022, at the age of 18. He began learning the piano at the age of seven and entered the Music Academy of the Seoul Arts Center the following year, before continuing his studies at the Korean National University of Arts with Professor Minsoo Sohn and entering international competitions. In 2018, he won second prize and the Chopin Special Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition in the Young Artists category, and the same year he was the youngest participant in the Thomas & Evon Cooper Piano Competition at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Ohio), where he took third prize and the Audience Prize. In 2019, at the age of fifteen, he is the youngest winner of the Ysang Un Competition in Tongyeong (South Korea). Selected from among the best young South Korean soloists, he took part in the KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) recording of Young Musicians of Korea, Vol. 3, for which he played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata op. 27 no. 2 and Liszt's Années de Pélerinage, Deuxième Année "Italie" S. 161. On June 18, 2022, Yunchan Lim wins the Gold Medal at the 16th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Four years after the victory of his compatriot Yekwon Sunwoo, he is at eighteen the youngest winner of the competition. His final performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3, conducted by Marin Alsop of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, was recorded and released in May 2025. In the meantime, the award-winning piano prodigy toured with some of the world's leading orchestras and signed with the Deutsche Grammophon label, which released the album Beethoven - Isang Yun - Barber (2022), featuring Beethoven's Emperor Concerto No. 5 conducted by Seokwon Hong with the Gwangju Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, the Steinway & Sons label releases his performance of Liszt's Études transcendentales in the semi-finals of the Van Cliburn Competition, which reaches No. 31 in the UK classical music charts and No. 5 in Billboard's Traditional Classical Albums chart. In October 2023, Yuncham Lim signs with Decca Classics for the recording of Chopin's Études, opp. 10 & 25, ranked #16 in South Korea and critically acclaimed worldwide. After the official release of his performance at the final of the Van Cliburn Competition comes his interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Seasons, released in August of the same year. In 2026, the pianist tackled the Baroque repertoire with Bach's Goldberg Variations, recorded live the previous year at New York's Carnegie Hall.