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The Korean pianist, Minsoo Sohn, began piano studies at age three. One of his earliest inspirations was Henryk Szeryng’s legendary recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. While the violin first captured his attention, he grew to appreciate the piano’s many voices and tonal colours. It wasn’t until Sohn moved to Boston to study with Russell Sherman and Wha Kyung Byun at the New England Conservatory of Music that he was reassured of his career as concert artist. “I just wasn’t sure I would be a musician,” he says. “I had interests in many fields and stopped playing. I even dreamed of being an athlete.”
Minsoo Sohn is First Laureate of the 2006 Canada’s Honens International Piano Competition. He was also a top prize-winner at the Rubinstein, Cleveland, Busoni and Hilton Head International Piano Competitions, and received laureate prizes at Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth and Santander’s Paloma O’Shea Competitions.
Minsoo Sohn has performed in recital halls, at festivals, and with orchestra across North America and Europe.
With orchestra in the USA, he has performed with the New Hampshire and Tallahassee Symphony Orchestras, and the Cleveland Chamber and Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestras. He also appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its "Salute to Symphony" concerts, which were broadcast on national television. Other notable appearances include performances with the Holland Symfonia, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, National Orchestra of Belgium, Orchestra "Haydn" of Bolzano and Trento (Italy), Real Filharmonia de Galicia (Spain), Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, and Orchestra "Haydn" of Bolzano and Trento (Italy). He has performed in recital at Boston's Jordan Hall (Centennial Concert Series), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and for the Harvard Musical Association, as well at New Hampshire's Monadnock Festival and Currier Museum of Art, San Francisco's Herbst Theatre, Spain's Palacio Festivalle de Cantabria, Italy's Academia Cusano and Monteverdi Hall, and throughout Belgium and Holland, including Brussel's Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie.
In 2007, Minsoo Sohn toured Germany in recital, and performs at numerous festivals throughout Canada and the USA. This year (2008) he performed with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, joined the line-up of the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, and was soloist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. He makes his Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall debut in April 2009. Minsoo Sohn “…is an artist, a man who will create a life in music, find listeners, and reward them,” says The Boston Globe’s Richard Dyer. Sohn’s masterful technique and astonishing artistic expression create performances rich in deep emotion and musical intelligence. His extraordinary interpretation of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) from the Honens Competition has been broadcast numerous times on CBC and across the USA on NPR’s Performance Today.
Minsoo Sohn's first CD - a disc of Franz Liszt transcriptions and etudes - was released this fall. He heads into the studio later this year (2008) to record the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988).
When not sitting at the piano, Sohn can be found watching his beloved Red Sox. |
