Seong-Jin Cho on the LSO, Ravel and the Chopin Competition

It's almost exactly ten years since the South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho came to widespread international attention after winning the XVII International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw and signing to Deutsche Grammophon shortly afterwards. With acclaimed recordings of Ravel, Chopin, Debussy and Handel/Brahms under his belt and fresh from a residency with the Berliner Philharmoniker, he's recently embarked on an Artist Portrait series with the London Symphony Orchestra, which will include an extensive European tour, the world premiere of a new concerto by his compatriot Donghoon Shin, and chamber music recitals with the LSO players.

In advance of his performance of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Barbican this Thursday, we met up in London to discuss his relationship with the orchestra and the city, his long-term love of Ravel's music, how he's evolved as a musician and a person since his victory in Warsaw ten years ago, and the practical tips which he has to offer to this year's contestants as the 2025 Chopin Competition is poised to get underway...

You’ve worked with the London Symphony Orchestra on a regular basis for most of your career: how did the relationship come about?

I made my first studio album with the LSO and Gianandrea Noseda, and that was our first encounter: in 2016 we recorded Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at Abbey Road, and it marked the start of a lovely partnership. Since then we’ve played at the Barbican together and toured to Latvia and Asia; we were doing Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in Japan and Korea with Simon Rattle in the fall of 2022 when Kathryn McDowell [the LSO’s Managing Director] suggested this idea of the Artist Portrait series to me, and I was delighted to accept. 

I’ve played with Tony Pappano and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra before, but this will be my debut with him and the LSO…Our first London concert is on September 18th, but we have three performances in Italy before that, then dates all over Europe through late September and early October. 

When did you first visit London, and how do you spend your time here when you’re not practising, rehearsing or performing?

My first time here was when I was nineteen and I came to visit my friend Sunwook Kim, a fellow Korean pianist; he still lives in London, and whenever I’m here I stay at his place. I lived in Paris while I was studying, and London is of course very close by train, so I came over quite regularly.

I think there’s a stereotype that the food in the UK is not so good, but there are so many great places to eat in London! I like exploring new restaurants, and there are thousands of them here – it’s very international in terms of cuisine. Food is a big passion of mine, and I love Borough Market as well.

Another lovely thing from a professional point of view is that London audiences are among the most attentive in the world – people really listen, whether you’re at the Barbican, the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall or the Proms. 

I’ve done three concerts at the Barbican so far; the most recent was a recital of Ravel’s complete works for solo piano in May, and I always feel very comfortable there. It’s quite a dry hall in terms of acoustics but it’s very clear, which is especially good for Ravel.

You’ve spent a lot of time with the composer in this anniversary year - when did his music come into your life?

It began when I was eleven or twelve. The first piece I learned was 'Alborada del gracioso' from Miroirs, and it opened up a totally new world for me – I think it was one of the first pieces of twentieth-century music that I played, and there are a lot of notes for a kid of that age to get around! Not quite as many as in Gaspard de la nuit, but I didn’t touch that for a long time…that one came well after the Chopin Competition.

Tell me a little about your friendship with Donghoon Shin, whose Piano Concerto you’ll be premiering with the LSO next year…

It was Kathryn McDowell who first mentioned Donghoon to me; of course I knew his name because he’s one of the most exciting Korean composers of today, so I immediately thought it would be wonderful to collaborate with him. I didn’t know so much about his music at that point, so I started exploring his work and was super-impressed – he has his own voice and musical language, which is what I really respect.

We met for the first time in February 2023, a day before I played at the Barbican. We went to an old Indian restaurant called Veeraswamy (on Regent Street), and found we had so much in common. We both love good restaurants, wine and whisky, so most of the evening was spent discussing food and drink - we barely talked about music at all! I knew straight away that we’d be really good friends and we catch up whenever I’m in London, where he’s lived for the past ten years.

Donghoon also travels to Berlin from time to time because the Berliner Philharmoniker have performed a lot of his music; I played one of his chamber works with students from the Karajan-Akademie when I was Artist in Residence there at the beginning of this year. It’s called My Shadow, and is scored for piano, two violins and cello - we’ll be doing it with some of the LSO musicians in London next February, paired with the Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor. It’s very meditative mysterious music, and I think the Piano Concerto is going to be something totally different: quirkier, darker and more dramatic. Donghoon sent me the first movement about a month ago, and I’m looking forward to the challenge!

You recorded a wonderful Lieder album with Matthias Goerne a few years ago - might more song and chamber music projects figure in your future?

I hope so - it’s become increasingly important to me lately, and it feels like the time is right now. I don’t think I was fully ready to do chamber music at the beginning of my career, and I was so busy with solo recital programmes and concertos that it was hard to find the time: when I won the Chopin Competition I only had about fifteen concertos in my repertoire, and now I play over thirty! 

But something shifted over the past five years or so, partly because of the pandemic: I had the breathing-space to look back on my professional life so far and appreciate how lucky I was to be able to make music with people I love, respect and admire, so I thought that doing chamber music with really good colleagues once things opened up again would be really meaningful. I feel so comfortable and grateful when I get to collaborate with the Berlin Phil musicians or with close friends from Korea: I learn something from them every time we rehearse or perform together, so from next season onwards I think I’ll do more of that…

The next Chopin Piano Competition gets underway in a couple of weeks’ time - how would you feel about being on the panel in future, and do you have any words of wisdom for this year’s competitors?

I feel like I’m still a little bit too young to judge great young pianists – ask me again in ten years! It would be a great experience to be on that jury, but I think it would be tough…

I wouldn’t presume to give the candidates any advice in terms of repertoire or interpretation, but I can offer a couple of practical tips…the most important one being to prepare for very cold weather when you’re packing! The competition runs throughout October and the weather changes dramatically over those four weeks, especially around the semi-final: the cold can really affect your hands, especially in a high-pressure situation like that when anxiety-levels are already high. And I can supply plenty of good restaurant recommendations!

You also need to be prepared for the fact that the atmosphere in the hall is quite cold too - in all honesty it feels more like an exam than a recital. The audience will only applaud at the end of your performance rather than after individual pieces, and if you play something powerful like the Marche funèbre Sonata in the middle of your programme (as I did) it can be very disconcerting to be met with silence. If any of this year’s competitors happen to be reading this, my advice is to forget about the reaction of the audience and just concentrate on the music.

It’s easier said than done but forgetting about the audience altogether is probably a good idea - there are jury-members up in the balcony, and looking up to see Martha Argerich sitting there right before I started to play did nothing to help my nerves! I never would have imagined that I’d be stepping in for her in a concerto performance ten years later…this summer I replaced her in Beethoven 1 with Daniel Harding and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Lucerne, and it still feels unreal.

Have you ever tried - or considered - directing from the piano?

I’ve done it just once, with a festival orchestra in Korea six years ago: we performed the Mozart Concerto in D minor K466 and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. I just did that for my own pleasure and experience, because I’d seen so many other pianists play-directing and I was curious to see how it felt. I found it so hard to rehearse, because for me music-making is about discussion rather than telling people what to do, and that isn’t exactly the most efficient way to work with an orchestra. I realised that my personality just isn’t suited to play-directing, so I guess that concert was my debut and retirement at the same time!

In terms of personal growth, what else have you learned about yourself over the past decade in the spotlight?

I’ve definitely got a lot better at packing a suitcase - I’m much faster and more efficient these days! I still get nervous right before every performance, but I’ve come to accept that as part of being human - knowing that old masters like Krystian Zimerman (and the late Radu Lupu) feel the same helps, in a strange way. I’ve never tried beta-blockers or anything like that; a certain level of tension is just part of the job for most people.

I do have a sort of pre-concert routine to minimise anxiety, but it’s all very normal stuff. I don’t talk much right before a concert, and I wash my hands exactly twenty minutes before I go on stage - they get too cold if I do it at the last minute, but if I don’t wash them at all then I sweat a lot!

Do you have any specific career-goals for the next ten years?

Yes: to master and perform Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2 before I get too old! My teacher Michel Béroff was famous for this concerto: I believe he stepped in to replace Pollini in a performance as a young man, and it really opened the door for his career. It’s a very important piece for Michel, and he told me to learn it when I was still young. I think it’s one of the greatest twentieth-century piano concertos – I’ve done No. 3 which is more Romantic, but No. 2 is the real Bartók…

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Seong-Jin Cho performs Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano at the Barbican on Thursday, and premieres Donghoon Shin's new Piano Concerto there on 20th November; full details of his Artist Portrait series with the orchestra can be viewed on the LSO website.