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SangKwon Lee

SangKwon Lee

SangKwon Lee is a classical music critic based in Seoul. He is officially registered with the Korea Artists Welfare Foundation – an organisation under the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism – as an artist specialising in music criticism, and has contributed performance reviews, columns, and interviews to various outlets, including the Seoul Arts Center, Music Review Monthly, and Classic J.

Author:SangKwon Lee

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Clarity as drama: Mao Fujita’s Mozart and Myung‑whun Chung’s Fantastique

By SangKwon Lee, 29 August 2025

An evening at the Seoul Arts Center in which clarity matters as much as volume and the most telling virtuosity comes from a refusal to grandstand.

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Mao Fujita’s Mozart and Myung‑whun Chung’s Fantastique in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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At Seoul Arts Center: Renes’ obscured Mahler 1 after Lisiecki’s lucid Beethoven 3

By SangKwon Lee, 10 August 2025

After Jan Lisiecki clarifies the architecture of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, Renes' Mahler felt like a letter written in the dark.

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Seoul Arts Center: Renes and Lisiecki play Beethoven and Mahler

By SangKwon Lee

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Breaking the shell: China NCPA Orchestra embarks on first European tour

By SangKwon Lee, 01 August 2025

This summer, Myung-whun Chung leads one of Asia’s leading orchestras on its first ever tour through Europe, with an energetic programme featuring young piano soloist Bruce Liu.

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Breaking the shell: China NCPA Orchestra’s first European tour

By SangKwon Lee

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Markus Stenz conducts three monumental 20th-century scores in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee, 18 July 2025

Propulsive Prokofiev from pianist Dmitry Shishkin between Ravel’s hypnotic minimalism and Schoenberg’s late-Romantic complexity.

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Markus Stenz conducts three monumental 20th-century scores in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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Nott shapes a visceral arc with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee, 06 July 2025

Fragmentation to ritual: this was no Rite of Spring of two halves but a single, vast architectural crescendo.

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Nott shapes a visceral arc with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

By SangKwon Lee

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Sculpted silences: Britten and Brahms under Jaap van Zweden in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee, 20 June 2025

From the very first bars of Britten’s Violin Concerto, Augustin Hadelich impresses in Britten's Violin Concerto, yet Jaap van Zweden's Brahms 4 appears misaligned.

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Sculpted silences: Britten and Brahms under Jaap van Zweden in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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Rach 4 redefined: Klaus Mäkelä and Yunchan Lim set a new benchmark at Seoul Arts Center

By SangKwon Lee, 11 June 2025

In Yunchan Lim’s hands the score to Rachmaninov's Fourth Piano Concerto emerges as a small revelation, conspicuously succeeding where so many others have floundered.

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Rach 4 redefined: Mäkelä and Yunchan Lim set a new benchmark in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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Fairy sparks to symphonic blaze: Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony with Bomsori Kim in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee, 01 June 2025

Tradition reborn with thrilling clarity: Jakub Hrůša’s Bambergers light up Seoul: Wagner’s shimmering overture, Bomsori Kim’s impassioned Bruch, and a lucid yet explosive Beethoven Seventh.

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Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony with Bomsori Kim in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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A night of bold strokes: Orozco-Estrada and Josefowicz light up Seoul Arts Center

By SangKwon Lee, 22 May 2025

By the close of the performance, one sensed that the audience’s exhilaration stemmed less from polished execution and more from a shared immersion in the music’s dramatic arc—elements that lingered as the defining memory of this eventful evening.

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A night of bold strokes: Orozco-Estrada and Josefowicz in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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Vibrant Brahms from Vladimir Jurowski, Ray Chen and the Berlin Radio Symphony in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee, 03 May 2025

At the Seoul Arts Center, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra achieves a luminous balance of historically informed insight and modern orchestral splendour, delivering performances that feel at once deeply rooted and thrillingly alive.

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Vibrant Brahms from Jurowski, Chen and the Berlin RSO in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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Saint-Saëns illuminated: Măcelaru, Kantorow, and the Orchestre National de France in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee, 29 April 2025

A sumptuous exploration of Saint-Saëns at Lotte Concert Hall in a programme forming a cohesive tapestry woven from the composer’s fascination with colour, all traced back to a distinctly Parisian sensibility.

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Saint-Saëns illuminated by the Orchestre National de France in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee

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Rescaling Bach: Yunchan Lim’s modern vision of the Goldberg Variations

By SangKwon Lee, 24 March 2025

The subtle interplay of colours – rather than uniform perfection – distinguishes Lim’s performance of the Goldbergs at the Goyang Arts Center.

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Rescaling Bach: Yunchan Lim’s modern vision of the Goldbergs

By SangKwon Lee

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Unity in Sound: Myung-whun Chung leads KBS and Tokyo Phil through a triumphant Mahler 1

By SangKwon Lee, 03 March 2025

Like the grainy intensity of a high-contrast black-and-white photograph, these rugged edges accentuated Mahler’s expressive extremes, reaffirming the conductor’s innate flair for crafting a grand aesthetic narrative within the symphony’s expansive architecture.

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Unity in Sound: Myung-whun Chung leads KBS and Tokyo Phil in Mahler 1

By SangKwon Lee

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Redemptive Mahler 2 from Myung-whun Chung and the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee, 21 February 2025

Myung-whun Chung and the KBS Symphony Orchestra tackle Mahler’s monumental Resurrection Symphony at the Seoul Arts Center.

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Redemptive Mahler 2 from Myung-whun Chung in Seoul

By SangKwon Lee