Pianist Yeol-Eum Son kicks off her busy summer season on 17 June at Lisbon’s Sintra Festival. She is joined by fellow pianist Frank Dupree in the festival’s adored and anticipated “Piano Dual” at the Olga Cadaval Cultural Center. Yeol Eum and Frank will “battle” in an immersive musical challenging that celebrates their virtuosity and spontaneity. They will each perform their own interpretations of the same pieces on the same piano with the audiences choosing their champions in this immersive and unique experience.
She will then make her Brazilian debut with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra on 25 – 27 June, performing Shostakovichs Piano Concerto No. 2 with conductor Karen Kamensek. On 28 June, Yeol Eum will then give a recital celebrating the compositional work of great piano virtuosos including Myra Hess’ arrangement of JS Bach’s Jesus, joy of men, Alicia de Larrocha’s 1941 Sonata, Wanda Landowska’s Feu follet and Valse and Tatiana Nikolayeva’s Elegy, followed by jazz-influenced arrangements of songs by Charles Trenet, Alexis Weissenberg and Earl Wild’s theme from Snow White, and Friedrich Gulda’s Play piano play: 7, 9 and 10.
August sees Yeol Eum’s return to the BBC Proms, performing Gershwin’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor James Gaffigan (13 August) at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
She then returns to Australia to perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in three concerts with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with conductor Nicolas Ellis on 21 – 23 August. She concludes her visit with a reprise of the above recital programme as part of the Harris International Piano Series in Adelaide on 28 August.
Poetic elegance, an innate feeling for expressive nuance, and the power to project bold, dramatic contrasts are among the arresting attributes of Yeol Eum Son’s pianism. She is highly sought-after on the international scene, praised for her refined artistry, breathtaking technical control, and a strikingly wide-ranging repertoire that spans from Bach and Mozart to Ligeti and Kapustin.
Additional highlights of the 2025/26 season included debut collaborations with the Danish National, Swedish Radio, and London Philharmonic, as well as her New York orchestral debut with the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center as part of Summer for the City. In the UK, return engagements featured collaborations with the Scottish Chamber and the BBC Symphony, the latter encompassing performances both at the London’s Barbican Centre and on tour in South Korea, while Asian highlights included a return to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.