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Korean Pianist Sunwoo Yekwon Releases New Album Dedicated to Liszt
The 37-year-old, who became the first Korean to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2017, structured the 11-track recording around the theme of singing with the piano. Sunwoo described shifting from viewing Liszt's music as too showy in his 20s to embracing its human voice and lyricism.
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Pianist Sunwoo Yekwon released his album "Liszt" on May 7, 2026, nine years after becoming the first Korean to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2017. A press conference to promote the recording was held in Seoul the same day. Yonhap reported that the 37-year-old artist's latest work follows his debut studio album "Mozart" in 2020 and "Rachmaninoff, A Reflection" in 2023.
Sunwoo told reporters he once saw Liszt differently. He frequently practiced the composer's works during his middle school years but completely stopped playing them in his 20s. "I didn't feel much charm in it.
I thought it was perhaps too showy and lacked inner depth," he recalled. The perspective changed in his 30s. "Liszt is a composer full of splendor, but I wanted to create an album that remembers him for the human voice and lyricism within it," Sunwoo said during the Seoul press conference.
He found that Liszt now matches his current musical colors and touch. Sunwoo described his piano tone as floating and transparent. " This delicate, crystal-clear approach, he said, aligns with the nuances he now hears in Liszt's music.
The album "Liszt" contains 11 tracks. It includes "Consolations," "Liebestraume," and "Hungarian Rhapsody No. " "The first three tracks evoke reminiscence and meditation and the next three are intimate, whispering songs," he said.
They are followed by two works exploring temptation and love, and two operatic, demonic fantasies, with the record culminating in "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" as a grand finale. The album was recorded at the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Dahlem, Berlin, a historic venue used by Herbert von Karajan.
