Yoonjung Han

Yoonjung "Yoonie" Han (born January 12, 1985, in South Korea ) is a South Korean-born American classical pianist.

Principal teachers: Robert McDonald, Eleanor Sokoloff, Eduardus Halim, Jean Saulnier, Victoria Mushkatkol

Academic positions:

University masterclasses and seminars:

Han's first competitive performance was at age 13, in the Seoul Philharmonic Concerto competition, which she won.

This was followed by many more such engagements.

In 2005, she performed the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto Number 2 in C minor with the Pottstown Symphony Orchestra in Pottstown, Pennsylvania as part of their Masterworks II: Young Artist Showcase program.

She was selected as one of the thirty-eight pianists worldwide in May 2005, participated in the TCU/Cliburn Piano Institute Young Artists program in conjunction with the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, performing at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the PepsiCo Recital Hall at the TCU Walsh Center for Performing Arts.

As the 2005 Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition winner, in November 2006, Han performed solo recitals at the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York.

In February 2006, Han performed a two-hour recital of Bach-Busoni, Mozart, Chopin, and Liszt at Dudley Recital Hall at the University of Houston.

In July 2006, she performed as a soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in their "Bravo Beethoven" concert at Artpark.

In March 2007, Han performed a recital at the Fifth Annual Steinway Piano Festival at Dauer Hall at the University of Florida.

In September 2007, she opened the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra's 60th season, performing the Liszt Piano Concerto Number 1 in E-flat major in their Diamond Jubilee concert.

In June 2008, Han won the 2008 Juilliard Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, and the Munz Chopin Competition.

Along with a Lincoln Center recital, the winners received full-tuition scholarships to Juilliard.

In August 2008, Han performed Mozart's Piano Concerto Number 22 in E-flat major, K. 482 at Eric Harvie Theatre with the Banff Festival Orchestra at the 2008 Banff Summer Arts Festival in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.

In October 2008, she gave a recital at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio as the gold medalist of the 2008 Cincinnati World Piano Competition.

In June 2009, Han performed in the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series at Preston Bradley Hall of the Chicago Cultural Center.

The concert was also broadcast live on WFMT (98.7 FM) radio and Channel 25 television.

She performed again at the Vladimir Nielsen Piano Festival in Sag Harbor, New York.

Han received the 2009 Gawon International Music Society of Seoul, South Korea award.

This award is given to the "most brilliant pianist aged 17-31 of any nationality who possesses the most promising potential for global prominence, to provide support for the artist's continued development and maturation as a musician."

Han performed a solo recital at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul, South Korea in September 2009, as part of the award.

In 2010, music critic Jon Sobel wrote that she would likely be among the premier young pianists of the decade, "one of those natural-born performers who become one with the instrument—not trying to surmount it, as a more showy pianist might, but rather losing herself in the music like an actor merging magnetically with a role."

Han has also enjoyed special sponsorships from Roche Bobois, the Paris-based international retailer of fine furniture; Breguet, France’s leading maker of luxury timepieces, and Dolce & Gabbana, the Italian fashion house, which has supplied gowns for her concerts.

In April 2010, Han performed a solo recital of Haydn, Chopin, Granados, and R. Schumann at Starr Theater, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center in New York City.

In July 2010, she won the Keyboard Charitable Trust Career Development Award at the Concurso Internacional de Piano in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

In April 2011, Han won the Fourth Prize at the Premi Internacional Pianístic de Paterna in Paterna, Valencia, Spain.

Her other albums include Debut (2013) on Concert Artists Guild label, Gloriosa Trio (2019) on the Centaur Records label, and Liszt on Steinway (2017), Prokofiev on Steinway (2017), and Steinway Piano Chilling (2017) on the Steinway & Sons label.

The first album, Love and Longing (2014) was quickly raised on the Classical Billboard chart and was nominated as "Album of the Week" on WQXR.

She was an assistant professor at Bilkent University in Turkey from 2015 to 2018.

Currently she is an assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Han is a Steinway & Sons concert and recording artist as well as a Steinway Honorary Teacher.

At age thirteen, Han made her solo debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at Sejong Concert Hall, playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto Number 3 in C minor.

Han won the Concerto Competition at the Juilliard Pre-College and performed with the Symphony at the Juilliard Theater.

Her second album with Steinway & Sons was released in 2017, Enrique Granados' complete Goyescas to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth.

The album features Black Duchess of Alba of Francisco Goya.

Her third album with Steinway & Sons presents the complete Le Rossignol Éperdu: 53 Piano Poems (2019) by Reynaldo Hahn.

Han's most recent album, Hollywood Romance (2020), featuring classical piano pieces from Hollywood Golden Age films, was released on Universal Music Group label.

Han recorded three albums on the Steinway & Sons label.