The Keyboard Trust is delighted to announce that the thrilling young Korean pianist, Jiyeong Mun - winner of both the Busoni and Geneva Competitions - will be giving its annual Wigmore Hall Prizewinner’s recital on Sunday, 27 October 2019 (7.30 pm).
Overall winner in her teens of both the Geneva Competition (unanimously awarded First Prize) and the Busoni Competition (first Asian pianist to win First Prize since it began in 1949), Jiyeong Mun, still just 23 years old, is following in the footsteps of Martha Argerich, who won both awards in 1957, launching a brilliant international career. Thanks to her absolutely genuine and natural approach to the instrument, the South Korean pianist has earned the appreciation of the public and prestigious international juries alike in recent years.
Jiyeong Mun began studying piano at the age of seven. She soon decided that she wanted to make performing her career and discontinued traditional schooling in order to spend more time at the piano. She subsequently graduated on her own – well ahead of her peers. In 2012 she won Germany’s Ettlingen International Youth Music Award Competition, selected for her ‘amazing musical imagination, so rich and full for a sixteen year old’.
In addition to winning the Geneva and Busoni competitions (see above), she also won the Rubinstein in Memoriam International Piano Competition in Poland (2009) and the Takamatsu International Competition in Japan (2014). She has also been awarded prestigious scholarships from foundations such as the Daewon Foundation for Culture and the Korean Foundation.
Considered in Korea to be one of the most talented pianists of her generation, she has performed in recital and as a concerto soloist with orchestras such as the Suisse Romande Orchestra, the Asian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic and the Korean Symphony Orchestra – and in countries such as Japan, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Switzerland, Mexico, Peru, Belgium, England, the USA, Denmark and throughout South Korea.
She is currently undertaking postgraduate studies with Professor Daejin Kim at the Korea National University of Arts.
‘I have rediscovered [in Jiyeong] a naturalness of musicality that I thought had disappeared.’ - Jörg Demus, President of the 60th International Busoni Competition jury
‘… technical prowess, sensitivity and commitment …’ – Garo Keheyan, Pharos Arts Foundation, Cyprus