Son Min-soo and Lim Yunchan [Provided by Mok Production]
Son Min-soo and Lim Yunchan [Provided by Mok Production]

The teacher-student duo is back — this time with the KBS Symphony Orchestra.

The KBS Symphony Orchestra will hold a special 70th-anniversary concert featuring pianists Son Min-soo and Lim Yunchan at Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul at 8 p.m. Wednesday, the orchestra announced.

The performance brings Son and Lim — who have grown from teacher and student into equal musical partners — together on a single stage. Japanese conductor Suzuki Masato will lead the orchestra; he previously conducted Lim alongside Camerata Salzburg last month.

The concert has drawn considerable attention in the classical music world as the first time the duo has shared a stage in a year. Following their debut duo recital last year, the two pianists will again showcase their partnership, this time through an orchestral collaboration.

The program also serves as a preview of the pair's upcoming appearance at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland just days later, where they will perform the same works with the Verbier Festival Orchestra under conductor Lahav Shani.

The piece they have chosen is Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat major (K. 365), which the composer originally wrote to perform with his sister Nannerl. The work features the two pianists' tones weaving in and out in near-competition before merging into a seamless whole — a fitting reflection of two artists who, beyond their teacher-student bond, now share a common artistic vision.

The concert is expected to showcase the rich sound of the KBS Symphony Orchestra alongside Son's scholarly clarity and Lim's free-spirited poetic sensibility. The central draw will be the layered musical dialogue between the two pianos and the orchestra, grounded in the precise, luminous articulation that lies at the heart of Mozart's music.


shee@heraldcorp.com