HaeSun Paik
New England Conservatory, Boston MA; Daegu Catholic University, South Korea; Artistic Director, Busan Music Festival
Pianist HaeSun Paik has been hailed as a “sensitive and thinking musician first and an awesome technician second” (Los Angeles Times) with a “big and individual personality” (New York Times), whose performances are “a wonder — elastic, mercurial, charged with meaning, surprising” (Boston Globe) and “a rare example of technique actually serving both idea and feeling, head and heart” (Musical America). Having garnered top prizes at international piano competitions such as the Queen Elisabeth, Leeds, William Kapell, and the Tchaikovsky, Ms. Paik has performed concerts around the world in solo recitals, concerti with orchestras, and chamber music ensembles.
Ms. Paik has appeared as a soloist under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev, Sir Simon Rattle, Vassily Sinaisky, Dmitri Kitaenko, Stanislav Skrovaczewski, and Myung Whun Chung, to name a few. She performed with orchestras including the Boston, National, London, City of Birmingham, Belgium National, Osaka, NHK, and KBS Symphony Orchestras, the Munich, Radio France, Tokyo, Warsaw, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Russian National Orchestra among others.
Ms. Paik has appeared frequently in recitals at prestigious venues throughout the U.S. including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, and Jordan Hall in Boston, and her international tours have brought her to major concert halls around the globe. She has appeared at numerous international music festivals including the Beethoven Festival in Munich, Radio France Festival in Montpellier, Courchevel Music Festival in France, Dino Ciani Festival in Italy, Ishikawa Music Festival in Japan, Beijing International Music Festival and Academy, Orford Music Festival in Canada, Monadnock Music Festival in New Hampshire, International Keyboard Institute & Festival in New York, PianoSummer at New Paltz (New York), PYPA at Curtis (Philadelphia), and the PyeongChang Music Festival and School and Busan Music Festival in Korea.
A superb collaborative artist, Ms. Paik performed with many distinguished artists including cellist Anner Bylsma, Mischa Maisky, Myung-wha Chung, violist Nobuko Imai, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, the Borromeo String Quartet, and the Jerusalem Quartet. Her duo recording with cellist Laurence Lesser of the complete works by Beethoven for cello and piano was released by Bridge Records. Her debut and subsequent solo recordings can be heard on the EMI label.
One of the most sought after pedagogical influences in Korea, Ms. Paik was the youngest pianist of her generation to be appointed as a music professor at Seoul National University, where she taught for ten years. She was on the piano faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music and currently is a member of the piano faculty at New England Conservatory. She is also an artist-in-residence at the Catholic University of Daegu and serves as the Artistic Director of the Busan Music Festival in Korea. She gives master classes at institutions and festivals worldwide and has served as a juror in many international competitions including the Bösendorfer and Yamaha USASU, the Cleveland, the Gina Bachauer, the Hilton Head, the Honens, and the Seoul (Dong-A) international piano competitions.
Ms. Paik's NEC training began at the age of 14, when she came to the U.S. from Korea to pursue her musical studies with Wha Kyung Byun, through the long-running partnership between New England Conservatory and the Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts. Subsequently, Ms. Paik attended New England Conservatory, earning a Bachelor of Music degree, a Master of Music degree, and an Artist Diploma under the guidance of both Russell Sherman and Wha Kyung Byun. Ms. Paik’s artistic development was further influenced through her studies at the International Piano Foundation in Lake Como (Italy).
