Born in Seoul in 1982, So-Ock Kim moved to London at the age of three. At 15, she was the youngest ever winner of the gold medal in the prestigious Shell/LSO Competition playing the Tchaikovsky concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican Hall. At 19, So-Ock was selected for the Young Concert Artists Trust. Her teachers have included Itzhak Rashkovsky, Felix Andrievsky and David Takeno.
So-Ock has given numerous critically acclaimed performances around the world and at Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Abroad she has comprehensively toured throughout Asia, Europe and the US, performing concertos and recitals in the various international music festivals, such as Schleswig Holstein, Beethoven Festival, Warsaw, Ravinia and Aldeburgh. Many of her performances have been broadcast on radio and television worldwide, including the BBC, ABC, Radio France, RAI, KBS, Polish Radio and Classic FM.
So-Ock has made numerous acclaimed international performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Sofia Philharmonic, Orchestre Nationale de Montpellier, KBS Symphony, Torino Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Mexico State and Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestras. She has recently performed with Krzystof Penderecki and the Polish Radio Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with Vassily Petrenko, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera North, City of London Sinfonia, London Mozart Players and the English Chamber Orchestra.
So-Ock has a keen interest in the performance of new works and has given several World Premieres that have been recorded for Universal (France and Korea) and Naxos. Future concerts include further performances with the Korean Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Westdeutsche Sinfonia and a Wigmore Hall recital.
So-Ock plays a 1666 Antonius Stradivarius kindly loaned to her by an anonymous donor.
19 year-old Sunwook Kim came to international recognition when he won the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006. The competition's youngest winner for 40 years, as well as its first Asian winner, his performance for the finals of Brahms's Concerto No.1 with Mark Elder attracted unanimous praise from the press, and led to concerto engagements with some of the UK's finest orchestras as well as recitals throughout Europe.
Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1988, Sunwook Kim began the piano at the age of 3. He gave his début recital aged just 10 at the Kumho Prodigy Series in Seoul, and this was followed by his concerto début two years later. Since then he has been a regular guest of Korea's finest orchestras, including the Seoul Philharmonic and the KBS Symphony, both at home and on tour internationally.
Over the past season he has appeared with the London Philharmonic (Vassily Sinaisky), Hallé Orchestra (Mark Elder), BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Tadaaki Otaka), as well as tours in Korea with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Myung-Whun Chung), Budapest Festival Orchestra (Ivan Fischer) and the BBC Philharmonic (Gianandrea Noseda).
Highlights among recital appearances include the Beethovenfest Bonn, Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele in Germany, the Aspen Music Festival in the USA, the Duszniki Zdrój International Chopin Festival in Poland as well as the Tongyeong International Music Festival and Kumho Rising Stars Series in Korea.
Sunwook Kim's forthcoming engagements include début recitals in Paris, Brussels, London, Vancouver and New York, as well as concertos with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Opera North, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic.
Sunwook Kim graduated from the Korean National University of Arts in February 2008, where he has been a student of Daejin Kim since 1999. Besides Leeds, international awards include the first prize at the 2004 Ettlingen Competition (Germany) and the 2005 Clara Haskil Competition (Switzerland). In Korea he was the first winner of the Daewon Artist of the Year Award (2005) and also received the Kumho Musician of the Year Award (2007).