Young pianist everyone’s talking about performs in San Jose this weekend

In June of 1988, to inaugurate its 500,000th handcrafted piano, Steinway & Sons threw a glamorous New York gala attended by Van Cliburn, Lazar Berman, Shura Cherkassky and other acclaimed pianists. But the honor of playing the 500,000th piano for the first time in public was given to a little-known 10-year-old Korean musician who, as the emcee put it, was meant to symbolize “the future of piano music.”

This past June, 34 years later, that symbolic “future” may have been realized, in spectacular fashion, at the Van Cliburn piano competition. That was when the prestigious event in Texas crowned its youngest-ever winner, South Korean Yunchan Lim, 18, who makes his West Coast debut Sunday with a Steinway Society recital in San Jose.

“An absolute superstar,” “a miraculous talent,” “already one of the most stupendous pianists I have ever heard,” tweeted Michael Lewin, head of piano at Boston Conservatory, who echoed the sentiments of thousands worldwide as the Cliburn competition unfolded.

Young musicians captivate the music world with stunning regularity, but rarely to Lim’s extent. He has created a fervor and excitement that borders on pandemonium. Tickets for Sunday’s concert at the Montgomery Theater sold-out in just 10 seconds, organizers say. The recital will also be live-streamed.

“I don’t think I was in my best condition at the Cliburn competition,” Lim, who began playing the piano at age 7, told us. “I entered the stage thinking about Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot,’ but I couldn’t help being nervous and couldn’t show 100% of me.”

Where did such a major talent spring from — and how did an 18-year-old leave such an indelible mark of artistic maturity upon the experienced ears of the music world?

“I felt he truly reached a transcendental height when he played the Liszt Etudes in the semifinals,” says pianist-composer Sir Stephen Hough, who served on the Cliburn jury and performed at the Steinway & Sons gala in 1988. “Not so much because of the brilliance of his fast fingers (many can do that), but he understood the rhetoric, the scope, the personality of Liszt. It isn’t speed but a kind of inner charisma.”

Music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, who conducted Lim in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, was seen shedding a rare tear onstage following Lim’s performance. The gesture was captured in a video that has since generated nearly 8 million views on YouTube.

“I was very moved, and reacted spontaneously,” recalls Alsop, former director of the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz. “Yunchan is truly a rare talent; a lovely human being, a profound musician, an astounding pianist and a person of humility and integrity. The fact that he is only 18 years old and already exhibits this deep level of musicianship is extremely moving.”

What moves Lim, he says, is an intimacy musicians know all too well.

“I think the most beautiful moment to taste music is when a musician practices in the practice room. The artist’s practice room is a space that creates various universes,” says Lim, who by age 12 was practicing eight  hours a day, and now devotes all day to his craft.

Sunday’s program includes Liszt’s challenging sonata “Après une lecture de Dante”, which should allow Lim to explore his darker universes. Lim devoured Dante’s “Divine Comedy” in preparation — there was even a rumor he could recite Alighieri’s epic poem in its entirety.

“Maybe not now, but at the time, I remembered enough to say the words of the book without looking at it, and I think it really meant I was inspired by Dante.”

Whether through inspiration, innate talent, or sheer will, Lim’s success rides a wave of musical victories for South Korean pianists. Lim’s victory follows Yekwon Sunwoo’s win at the Van Cliburn competition in 2017, and Seong-Jin Cho’s 2015 championship at the Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. (Cho will perform in Berkeley in December, as part of the Cal Performances series.)

“Yunchan’s biggest gift is his desire and commitment, his complete discipline in approaching music,” says Minsoo Sohn, Lim’s principal teacher of six years. “Yunchan is a student of steady growth — he does not settle but constantly evolves. I believe this is how he was able to capture and startle the world with his music at such a young age.”

“I never thought I had musical talent in my life,” says Lim. “I’m just a person who loves music so much. Music was born to communicate. I want to share my ideas with the audience, ask them for their opinions, and this is probably one of the most beautiful things in the world.”

Contact Elijah Ho at [email protected].

LIM YUN-CHAN

In recital, presented by the Steinway Society

When: 2:30 p.m. Sept. 18

Where: Montgomery Theatre, 271 S. Market St., San Jose

Tickets: Live performance sold out, sign up for stand-by list on website; live-stream tickets $40; steinwaysociety.com