Yunchan Lim Yunchan Lim

Yunchan Lim was born in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, in 2004. At 13 he entered the Institute for Gifted Youth in the Arts at the Korea National University of Arts, where he met the pianist Minsoo Sohn, who is still his teacher today. His first international competition was the 2018 Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists, where he won second prize and the Chopin special prize.

What put his name on the world map was the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition held in Fort Worth, Texas, in June 2022. He won the gold medal at 18, becoming the youngest winner in the competition's history. In particular, his video of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 from the finals became a huge hit on YouTube, and according to Decca it has passed 17 million views.

In October 2023, after interest from several labels, he signed an exclusive contract with the British label Decca. His first studio album for Decca, "Chopin: Études" (2024), won the piano category at that year's Gramophone Awards in the UK, and at the same ceremony he also received the Young Artist of the Year award. It was the first time a Korean pianist had won a Gramophone Award. The album also won three awards at the 2025 BBC Music Magazine Awards. In 2025, a live recording of the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 from the Van Cliburn finals came out as an album, and the same year he released Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons" as his third album.

His performance of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" at his Carnegie Hall recital in New York on April 25, 2025 was made into a live album, released in February 2026. It is his fourth album since signing with Decca. For this album he received the Instrumentalist of the Year award at the 2026 Opus Klassik, Germany's most prestigious classical music prize. The album was also a finalist in the piano category of the 2026 Gramophone Awards, but the prize went to another record. His ties to Carnegie Hall run deep as well. After his Carnegie Hall debut in 2024, he has given a recital there every year, and in the 2026–27 season he plays all 18 Mozart piano sonatas in four recitals. The first concert took place on October 21, 2026, and was sold out as well. The remaining concerts are December 14, 2026, March 24, 2027, and May 11, 2027.

Yunchan Lim first became known through works demanding great virtuosity, such as Liszt's Transcendental Études, Chopin's Études, and Rachmaninoff's concertos. Since then he has been widening his repertoire with works of a different character, such as Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons," Bach's "Goldberg Variations," and the complete Mozart sonatas. As a result, each new concert and album from him continues to draw the attention of the press and audiences at home and abroad.