Spring tour with Sunwook Kim
18th March - 13th April 2025

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe is thrilled to be joined by South-Korean pianist Sunwook Kim for an intercontinental tour this spring, featuring all of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos, as well as works by contemporary composers Anna Clyne and Helen Grime. The tour will start on 18th March with rehearsals in Kronberg, where the COE is resident at the Kronberg Academy’s Casals Forum. We are particularly thankful to Hyundai Motor whose generous support has made this project possible and whose headquarters are located just down the road in Offenbach am Main.

Following the rehearsals in Kronberg, the COE and Sunwook will perform their first concert at the Salle Philharmonique de Liège (Belgium) on 22 March . They will then perform at the Kammermusiksaal der Berliner Philharmonie on 24 March, at the Halle aux Grains in Toulouse on 26 March and then twice at the COE’s home in Austria, Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt on 29th and 30th March. The Orchestra and Sunwook will then fly off to South Korea where they will perform a number of concerts between 3rd and 8th April. They will then travel back to the UK to perform their last two concerts at Saffron Hall in Saffron Walden on 11 April and at London’s Barbican Centre on 12 April.

The COE and Sunwook Kim

We are delighted to work with Sunwook Kim again, following our tour to South Korea (Seoul, Daegu and Incheon) together with conductor Kirill Karabits back in November 2022. COE General Manager Simon Fletcher said: “The Chamber Orchestra of Europe first made music with Sunwook Kim in 2022 immediately establishing a strong musical and personal connection. It is with great anticipation and pleasure that we look forward to exploring Beethoven’s five piano concertos together, without conductor, on tour in Europe and Korea during Spring 2025. As a collective of chamber musicians it will be a delight for us to work with Sunwook on Beethoven’s inspiring piano concertos and to have the opportunity to realise the many special and exciting performances that we have ahead of us.” This feeling of anticipation is mutual as Sunwook said: “The Chamber Orchestra of Europe is without a doubt one of the finest ensembles. It is a group admired and sought after by many wonderful Maestros, and the history and sound they have created continue to shine, maintaining their excellence to this day. I feel incredibly honoured and thrilled to have the opportunity to perform my most beloved Beethoven piano concertos with these wonderful musicians. I eagerly look forward to this tour, hoping it will create joyful memories for both myself and the orchestra, and I cannot wait for the day to arrive.”

The programme

The programme of the concerts features all of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos. Interestingly, the first two concertos were very much composed for soloist and orchestra whereas, in Nos. 3, 4 and 5, the piano is more of a lead instrument which interacts with the orchestra chamber music style. It is this unique and deep musical and human connection that Sunwook and the COE musicians relish and will seek to convey to international audiences.

Anna Clyne’s work for string orchestra “Stride” is based on Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 ‘Pathetique’ and structured around the octave leaps on the left hand. Composed for string orchestra in 2020, Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year. She said: “I chose a few melodic, rhythmic and harmonic fragments from each movement (exhibited as an appendix to the score) and developed these in the three corresponding sections of Stride. The title is derived from the octave leaps that stride in the left hand in first movement of Sonata Pathétique. I was immediately drawn to the driving energy of this bass movement and have used it as a tool to propel Stride.”

“Clyne plunders recognisable gestures from the Beethoven and bends them, chameleon-like, into an array of moods from mad waltzes to chanting cries and stabbing strings à la Bernard Herrmann. It’s a wild ride of a piece, full of humour and virtuosity, and a clever link back to the music celebrated in this anniversary concert.” —Limelight Magazine
“It held the attention of the audience with clever, accessible invention, and plenty of excitement.” —JWire

The COE will also perform Helen Grime’s work for wind ensemble “Elegiac Inflections”. Although not directly related to Beethoven, this work is an intensively lyrical exploration of elegy (fast and slow), whilst Beethoven’s middle movements (especially no.3 which “Elegiac Inflections” is always paired with) explore elegy in different guises.
“Elegiac Inflections” is also highly virtuosic and features almost continuous trills, arpeggios, decorations. Beethoven, especially as he progressed throughout his piano concerto cycle, began to see these flourishes not just as decoration but as thematic in and of themselves – for instance in the opening of Piano Concerto No. 5.
Grime was strongly influenced by her Scottish heritage and incorporates local folk inflections into her music. Beethoven was equally influenced by -and loved! – his local German/Austrian folk heritage which made its way deep into his music, and later in life he explored himself Scottish, Irish and Welsh songs.

Only at the Barbican Centre concert, a wind octet from the ranks of the COE’s wind section will perform Beethoven’s Rondino in E flat Major, an early masterpiece likely to have been inspired by Mozart’s Serenades KV.375 and 388, as well as the wind virtuosi whom Beethoven had met when he was a viola player in Bonn’s court orchestra, the Hofkapelle, in 1789-90.

Sunwook Kim

Sunwook Kim came to international recognition when he won the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006, aged just 18, becoming the competition’s youngest winner for 40 years, as well as its first Asian winner. His performance of Brahms’ Concerto No.1 with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder in the competition’s finals attracted unanimous praise from the press. Since then, he has established a reputation as one of the finest pianists of his generation, appearing as a concerto soloist in the subscription series of some of the world’s leading orchestras.

In the 2024/25 season, Sunwook continues his term as Music Director of the Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra conducting works from Mozart and Beethoven to Strauss, Bartok and Unsuk Chin. Sunwook will also make his conducting debuts with the Iceland Symphony, Armenian National Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic.

Read more on the Askonas Holt website.