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Artist in Residence: Seong-Jin Cho plays Shostakovich
Artist in Residence
Artist in Residence
Info
Seong-Jin Cho, the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Artist in Residence for the 2024/25 season, is considered a poet at the piano, but also has a penchant for black humour. This is demonstrated not least by the work he has chosen for this programme: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano and Trumpet, which brilliantly parodies the piano concerto genre. Anton Bruckner’s First Symphony provides a counterpart to this with its tonal opulence, solemnity and spirituality. The concert is conducted by Estonian Paavo Järvi, who opens the evening with an overture by compatriot Veljo Tormis.
Artists
Berliner Philharmoniker Paavo Järvi conductor Seong-Jin Cho piano Guillaume Jehl trumpet
Programme
Veljo Tormis Overture No. 2
Dmitri Shostakovich Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra in C minor, op. 35
Seong-Jin Cho piano, Guillaume Jehl trumpet
Interval
Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 1 in C minor (Linz version)
Datesandtickets
Main Auditorium
26 to 82 €
Introduction
19:15
Series I: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Main Auditorium
26 to 82 €
Introduction
18:15
Series K: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Main Auditorium
26 to 82 €
Introduction
18:15
Series L: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
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Find out when microphones make Seong-Jin Cho nervous, that a pianist’s work never ends, and why the sound of the piano cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence.
5 questions for Seong-Jin Cho We ask, Cho plays his answers on the piano
5 questions for Seong-Jin Cho
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If you click on the video, certain personal data will be sent to Vimeo.com, Inc., 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA ("Vimeo"). Vimeo can analyse the usage data and use it, among other things, for advertising purposes. The level of data protection in the USA is lower than in the EU. More information can be found here. You can withdraw your consent at any time.
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Video: Adam Janisch
To kick off his residency, we asked Seong-Jin Cho five questions that he was only allowed to answer on the piano. For example: What is your earliest musical memory? Which piece do you play to warm up? In the end, our artist in residence did say a few words.
Biographies
Paavo Järvi
“Why did Wilhelm Furtwängler make a ritardando here, when George Szell didn’t? What if the beat should actually come on the minim in this section instead of the usual four crotchets?” Things like this were discussed at the dining table in the house where Paavo Järvi grew up, because he comes from a family of musicians. Both his father Neeme and his brother Kristjan are conductors; his sister Maarika is a flutist, and his cousin Teet is a cellist. After moving to the US, where Paavo Järvi completed his training at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and with Leonard Bernstein at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, historically informed performance practice increasingly became the focus for him. “And that,” says the conductor, “was something that appealed to me quite strongly.”
Järvi attracted attention early on, because he approached the standard repertoire from an unconventional perspective and won international acclaim for his Beethoven and Brahms interpretations, which were praised for their exuberant energy and freshness. Today he is chief conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and artistic director of both the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Estonian Festival Orchestra. When he made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in February 2000, he already knew the sound of the orchestra well: “I grew up with recordings of the Berliner Philharmoniker,” he explains. “We listened to them almost every day.”
Seong-Jin Cho
In October 2015, the Korean pianist won first prize at the 17th International Chopin Competition in Warsaw – and his live recording made it to number one in the pop charts with over three million albums sold. With an unmistakable touch, poetic and grippingly virtuoso interpretations and his own unique sound. Seong-Jin Cho sees his main task as “understanding the composer, his music, his language and his emotions better and better”, which is why he is constantly developing his interpretations. This is the “most fascinating part of being a musician, everything is a lifelong journey in which I find my own interpretation and my own voice”.
Seong-Jin Cho, who gave his first public concert at the age of eleven and studied with Michel Béroff at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, made his acclaimed debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2017. In the same year, he toured Asia with the orchestra and Simon Rattle as a stand-in for Lang Lang, followed by the next joint concert tour to South Korea and Japan under Kirill Petrenko in 2023. This season, the “poet at the piano” (Simon Rattle) presents the most diverse facets of his skills as Artist in Residence in concerts with the orchestra and in various chamber music ensembles.
Guillaume Jehl
Guillaume Jehl began playing the trumpet at the age of eight in his home town, Saint-Louis, in France’s Alsace region. He studied at the conservatory in Mulhouse before graduating with distinction from the Paris Conservatoire. His first engagements were in 1998 as second trumpet in the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and in 2000 in the Orchestre National de France. In 2001 Guillaume Jehl was appointed principal trumpet of the Basle Symphony Orchestra, and in 2006 he returned as principal trumpet to the Orchestre National de France, joining the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2009. In the 2020/21 season, he became principal trumpet of the orchestra.
Along with his work in the orchestra, Guillaume Jehl, who is active as a soloist and chamber musician, was deeply involved in the study of the Baroque trumpet at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he also teaches. He continues to receive coaching from Johann Gansch at the Salzburg Mozarteum University.
