Yunchan Lim Makes History with Triple BBC Music Awards Win – Fort Worth Magazine

At just 21, pianist Yunchan Lim sweeps the BBC Music Magazine Awards — a first in the event’s nearly two-decade history.
by FWTX staff
April 24, 2025
10:28 AM
The Cliburn
June 17, 2022. Yunchan Lim from South Korea performs the final concert with Jury Chairman and Conductor Marin Alsop and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra for the Finals of the Sixteenth Cliburn International Piano Competition in Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Ralph Lauer)
It’s a few minutes past 9 p.m. in London. Somewhere behind the velvet curtains of the BBC Music Magazine Awards, 21-year-old pianist Yunchan Lim is still catching his breath. 
Three wins. One album. One night. 
Lim’s “Chopin: Études,” released on Decca Classics, has just made history —winning Recording of the Year, Instrumental, and Newcomer of the Year. No artist has ever done that in the 19-year history of the BBC Music Magazine Awards. 
“I did not expect this outcome at all,” Lim told BBC Music Magazine. “I’m so grateful.” 
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Those words echo like a mission statement. Not just for Lim, but for anyone who’s seen what he can do onstage. In the words of Charlotte Smith, editor of BBC Music Magazine: “In 20 years of BBC Music Magazine Awards, this is the first time that a performer has walked away with three prizes for a single album. And that the artist at the centre of these three prestigious awards should just have celebrated his 21st birthday is downright astonishing. But Yunchan Lim is no ordinary artist” 
The story, of course, begins in Fort Worth. Back in 2022, Lim walked onstage at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and did something no one expected. He played Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto like a man possessed — except he was just 18. His performance became the most-watched rendition of the piece on YouTube, currently sitting at more than 17 million views. Conductor Marin Alsop, who led the orchestra that night, later told the New York Times the performance showed “an old soul, rather than a young performer.”  
Decca Classics announced last week that the live recording of that very performance will be released on May 16. “The creation of a recorded legacy on Decca Classics was at the heart of our conversations with Yunchan from the very beginning,” said Decca Label Director Dominic Fyfe in the official label announcement. “These two albums are already milestones in his career… They document his artistry in both live and studio settings, capturing the hypnotic music-making which has become Yunchan’s signature.” 
Released in April 2024, “Chopin: Études” earned international acclaim. It went quadruple platinum in South Korea and won the Diapason d’or de l’année in France. And then came London. At the 2024 BBC Proms, Lim made his Royal Albert Hall debut — the fastest-selling concert of the season. The Guardian called it “the most thrilling pianistic debut of the last decade” and described his encore of Bach’s “Siciliano” as “an undeniably magical moment of the season.”  
Last fall, Lim played a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR, performing works by Liszt and Tchaikovsky. Despite feeling under the weather, NPR noted his “powerful command of every note,” saying he made their upright piano “sound like a concert grand.” 
The accolades just keep coming. In addition to the BBC Awards, “Chopin: Études” earned Lim a Gramophone Classical Music Award for Piano, and he was named Young Artist of the Year.  
Now, as he heads to Carnegie Hall on April 25 for a performance of the “Goldberg Variations,” followed by a return to Royal Albert Hall on May 20, there’s a sense that the story is only getting started. 
And yet, for all the history and hype, he remains focused. Still chasing that delicate balance between head and heart. Still letting the music speak for itself. 
“I strive always to harmonise what my heart tells me with what my mind dictates,” Lim said.   
by FWTX staff
April 24, 2025
10:28 AM
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