About
Yekwon Sunwoo is a South Korean classical pianist. In 2017, at 28 years old, Sunwoo was the first Korean to win the gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He won the Sendai International Music Competition in 2013.
After winning the 2008 Florida International Piano Competition, Sunwoo gave his Carnegie Hall debut in New York City in 2009. He went on to win several other competitions including the William Kapell International Piano Competition, Vendome Prize held at the Verbier Festival, and the International German Piano Award.
On June 10, 2017, Sunwoo won the gold medal of the Fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, becoming the first Korean to do so. The quadrennial competition, named in honor of pianist Van Cliburn, included four rounds of performances consisting of two 45-minute solo recitals and one 60-minute solo recital with no overlapping repertoire in addition to a piano quintet performed with the Brentano String Quartet and two piano concertos played with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, one under Nicholas McGegan and other under Leonard Slatkin. The Competition received 290 applications from which 30 were invited to compete in the live competition. By winning the gold medal, Sunwoo was awarded the Van Cliburn Cup, $50,000, three years of career management, a live recording and a recording partnership with Universal Music Group, press kits, videos, a website, and performance attire by Neiman Marcus.Two weeks after the conclusion of the 2017 Cliburn competition, Decca Gold released Cliburn Gold 2017 which includes Sunwoo’s live performances from the Competition.
Sunwoo has performed with many top-tier orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop, Orchestre National de Belgique, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra with James Feddeck, and The Juilliard Orchestra with Itzhak Perlman. He has given recitals in venues across the world including the Berliner Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Hamarikyu Asahi Hall in Tokyo, Wigmore Hall in London, and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul.
Following an announcement in December 2017, Sunwoo is currently managed worldwide by Keynote Artist Management and in Korea by MOC Production.