Minsoo Sohn, Teacher of Yunchan Lim, Lands Record Deal

Record labels fought an auction for the signature of Minsoo Sohn, the teacher of Yunchan Lim — and the resulting release has now appeared.

Sohn became a sought-after figure shortly after his 18-year-old student became the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn Competition in 2022. As Slippedisc reports in its Album of the Week column, executives described by the site as "white beards of the music business set off in search of the hidden source of this phenomenon."

Who is Minsoo Sohn?

Sohn is the pianist who trained Yunchan Lim, the South Korean prodigy whose 2022 Van Cliburn triumph made international headlines. At the competition, Lim played a Rachmaninov concerto with what the source calls "an introspective intensity and delicate beauty," paired with "a near-inarticulate humility."

The young pianist's own ambitions were strikingly unworldly. "All he wanted to do, said Yunchan, was sit on a mountain and think about Bach, 'our greatest ancestor and our source.'"

What does the new release mean?

The auction between record labels for Sohn's signature has produced this album, reviewed by Slippedisc's Lebrecht Album of the Week column. The title of the original post — "The sorcerer takes on his apprentice" — frames the release as a passing of mastery from teacher to student, now reversed: the teacher steps forward on the strength of his apprentice's fame.

The release gives listeners the chance to judge whether the source of Lim's phenomenon stands comparison with the phenomenon himself. Slippedisc indicates more coverage will follow.