Christopher Park
Biography Christopher Park
Christopher Park
“Christopher Park is a pianist who captivates with his fascinating technical mastery, astounding musical maturity, and a particularly intense performance style” – this was the explanation given by the jury by the Stiftung Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival upon awarding Christopher Park the renowned Leonard Bernstein Award 2014. He thereby joined the ranks of noteworthy musicians such as Lang Lang, Lisa Batiashvili and Martin Grubinger, who all started their careers with this internationally sought-after award.
Numerous important ensembles have engaged Park, a Bamberg-born musician with German-Korean roots, including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, both Frankfurt and North German Radio Symphony Orchestras, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Opera Orchestra, Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, Spanish National Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, China NCPA Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Chambre Orchestra of Lausanne and Bamberg Symphony, to name but a few. In November 2014, Christopher Park stood in for Emanuel Ax to great success with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, only a few months after his widely celebrated début in Hamburg.
So far he has worked with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Jarvi, Sebastian Weigle, Ion Marin, Paul Daniel and Dimitri Kitaenko. He has given concerts in Europe, China, South Africa and South Korea and played at events including the Ravinia Festival, the Klavierfestival Ruhr, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Quincena Musical de San Sebastián and the Burgos International Music Festival.
In the coming 2016/2017 concert season, Christopher Park has been chosen as „Rising Star“ by the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation). Therefore he will debut in Europe’s renowned concert halls in London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Vienna, Stockholm, Barcelona, Budapest, Lisboa and others.
Alongside his engagements as a soloist, for which he has gained recognition in the form of various scholarships and awards (e.g. the Rheingau Music Festival to support new talent), he is passionately involved in chamber music. He made his début in the Brahms Saal of the Vienna Musikverein at the end of 2014 with the Küchl Quartet, which comprises members of the Vienna Philharmonic. After that the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra nominated him as their candidate for the Credit-Suisse Award. He has also played with Avi Avital, Richard O’Neill, Leticia Moreno and Adolfo Gutiérrez Arenas and accompanied singers including Sumi Jo. He has collaborated with John Neumeier on various projects such as Stravinsky’s Petrushka Variations, Schumann’s Kinderszenen and suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Christopher Park was influenced by two major musical traditions during his studies: the Russian school of Lev Oborin with Lev Natochenny as well as the German school of Wilhelm Kempff with Joachim Volkmann.
