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Pianist Soojin Ahn has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia to unanimous critical acclaim from the critics and the public. Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe called her performance “rapt and enthralling”, and Susan Larson, also of the Boston Globe, wrote after her performance of the Ravel concerto, “Ahn, on the attack, was all over the piano- percussive, fluid, flamboyant”.
Ms. Ahn has won prizes in many international competitions, most notably the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the audience prize at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Since then she has soloed with orchestras including Boston Pops, Jupiter Symphony (NYC)), Omaha Symphony, Colorado Springs Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and New England Chamber Orchestra. In 2001, she was invited by Maestro David Robertson to perform Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony with Chicago Civic Orchestra. As a recitalist, she has performed in venues including Alice Tully Hall in New York City, Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall in Boston, and in Philadelphia under the auspices of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Her performances have been broadcast frequently on WFMT, Chicago. Her recent performance at the Fazioli Salon Series in November of 2006 has been voted as the “Best Performance of the Year” and was re-broadcast at the end of the year. She has stunned the music community when she performed the twenty-four etudes of Chopin in a single concert at age fifteen for her debut recital at the Sejong Cultural Center in Korea. .
Ms. Ahn began playing the piano at the age of three in her native Korea. At age nine, she moved to the United States to continue her musical studies. Her teachers include Menahem Pressler, Russell Sherman, and Yoheved Kaplinsky. She holds B.M. and M.M. from the New England Conservatory, and Advanced Certificate from the Juilliard School.
“She played the Schubert with a beautiful, full, velvety quality of tone, a vocal degree of rhythmic freedom, and a real generosity and sweetness of emotion.”
Richard Dyer, Boston Globe
“Her playing had such utter, rapt poise.”
Richard Dyer, Boston Globe
“Ahn is a go-for-it pianist, delighting in highly differentiated dynamics and colors, and is possessed of a strong-rooted sense of rhythm. The second movement’s slow, sad waltz begun by the piano solo showed Ahn’s ability to spin out a long skein of melody, responding to its quirky turnings and controlling its accumulations and releases of tension.”
Susan Larson, Boston Globe
“Her playing is a paradox of elegance and excitement, poetry and fire.”
The Greenville News
“When she plays, she can take you straight through to Tipperary - or the moon.”
Russell Sherman
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