24/25 Season Opener by Bolcom, Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns, Alkaen (2024/2024), Musiikinjohto Earl Lee, Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, United States

The first Korean gold medallist of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Yekwon Sunwoo has been hailed for his “unfailingly consistent excellence” (International Piano) and celebrated as “a pianist who commands a comprehensive technical arsenal that allows him to thunder without breaking a sweat” (Chicago Tribune). Sunwoo joins Music Director Earl Lee and the A2SO to perform Rachmaninoff’s legendary Piano Concerto No. 2, a work that crowned the composer’s triumphant return to success and public acclaim after the disastrous premiere of his first symphony. Rounding out the program is William Bolcom’s Ann Arbor Saturday, commissioned and premiered by the A2SO in 2018, as well as Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3, a work notable for its use of pipe organ. After its wildly successful premiere, Saint-Saëns remarked “I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.”