Seong-Jin Cho and the LSO: Live at the Barbican

As the final concert for this year’s K-Music Festival, the London Symphony Orchestra featured an artist portrait of pianist Seong-Jin Cho at the Barbican. The evening focused on the world premiere of a new concerto by composer Donghoon Shin, written for Cho and performed with the LSO, conducted by Maxime Pascal.

Seong-Jin Cho, Donghoon Shin and Maxime Pascal take a bow together (c) Mark Allan

Composer and pianist are both leading Korean artists in the field of contemporary classical music and this was an extraordinary collaboration. Cho, winner of the 17th International Chopin Competition and current Artist-in-Residence with the Berlin Philharmonic, returns to the Barbican following his sold-out recital in 2023. Shin’s works have been commissioned and performed by major international ensembles and are published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Alongside the Piano Concerto, the first half of the concert also included pieces by two composers commissioned under the LSO Helen Hamlyn Panufnik scheme. Omri Kochavi’s gilufim (“carvings”) was followed by Sasha Scott’s Sly. Both pieces were performed for the first time and the composers came to the stage to take the applause of the audience.

While the piano was moved into position, a video interview with Donghoon Shin explained how the composer came to meet Cho and the commission to write his Piano Concerto, which brings modern Korean music to a UK stage.

Beginning with ethereal strings and pianissimo brass as the orchestra introduces the piece, once Cho’s piano begins, it is clear that this is an extremely demanding - physically as well as musically - concerto. The interplay between sections of the orchestra and the soloist are breathtaking. The music moves between the sublime, melodic lyrical sections into rhythmic, percussive moments.

Every piano concerto needs a careful balance between orchestra and soloist and the LSO/Cho combination, under the baton of Maxime Pascal was highly effective. As a finale to the K-Music Festival, this was genius programming - some of the UK’s finest classical musicians alongside a world-class Korean pianist performing a piece by one of the foremost young Korean composers.

Returning from the interval, the audience was treated to a teaser of the final piece - Pierre Boulez’s Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna from 1975. The orchestra is mathematically split into seven groups of musicians, each with a percussionist, plus an eighth group of 14 musicians and gongs. Complicated, mathematical and complex, the music was nevertheless engaging and even fun in places.

The programme was an inspired combination of modern music with a global diversity and the perfect end to a festival that has introduced many of us in the UK to Korean music.