Mark Hambourg News Today

Yunchan Lim shot to prominence when he won the Van Cliburn competition at the age of 18. Now 20 and attempting to remain detached from his superstar status, he releases his eagerly anticipated debut album for Decca. Jeremy Nicholas meets him

When pianist Lim Yunchan, the youngest winner ever to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, attended the press conference for Apple Music Classical on Jan. 29, he performed three of Chopin Etudes: Op. 25, No. 1 “Aeolian Harp;” Op. 10, No. 5 “Black Keys;” and Op. 25, No. 11 "Winter Wind." For his playlist exclusively unveiled on the Apple Music Classical app, the 19-yea...

Lim Yunchan, the youngest winner ever to win the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, unveiled a single of Chopin’s Op.10 No.3 "Tristesse" earlier this week, offering a sneak peek at his first album on the Decca Classical label. His upcoming album, titled “Chopin: Etudes,” will be released April 19, according to Universal Music Group, Decca’s parent company. The pianist signe...

Soviet-era pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky, who passed away 1961, has been brought back to the spotlight in South Korea recently thanks to playlists compiled by top musicians. The pianist is on the playlists of two star Korean pianists -- Cho Seong-jin and Lim Yun-chan -- unveiled on Apple Music Classical last week. In addition to Lim and Cho, another celebrated pianist, Son Yeol-eum, and composer and music director Jun...

In 1923 Compton Mackenzie responded to music-lovers’ pleas for a new magazine about records and launched The Gramophone

What was in the news 100 years ago today? Richard Forrest reports in Echoes of Our Past

By ECB Wijeyesinghe Holland has been mentioned so often in these columns recently that one cannot help lamenting the almost mass exodus of a small but important section of our population in search of fresh pastures. One would have thought that all good Burghers when they die go to Holland, but unfortunately that is not […]

By ECB Wijeyasinghe When Julius Caesar said: “let me have men about me that are fat,” he must have been thinking of persons like Lionel Wendt. Wendt was half a dozen extraordinary characters rolled into one and would have delighted the heart of Caesar’s recruiting sergeant. Naturally, Wendt was a heavy man where adiposity was […]

Retro articles are often memory joggers but this week's tome comes in the category "before my time."