When Yunchan Lim swept to victory at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto immediately became the stuff of legend. Three years later, the original video has seventeen million views on YouTube.
Yunchan Lim
Since then, creators have posted a number of behind-the-scenes videos and commentaries, pulling back the curtain about how Lim prepared for his star turn, what jurors experienced on the day, how conductor Marin Alsop and fellow pianists interpret his artistry, and more.
Is Yunchan Lim’s Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto the greatest ever?
In this video, pianist and commentator Ben Laude from Tonebase breaks down Yunchan Lim’s prizewinning Rachmaninoff performance.
Over the course of the video, he addresses not only what makes this performance so special? But is this performance the greatest Rachmaninoff Third Concerto ever?
Laude examines a number of famous passages (and even individual notes) to describe in detail why this interpretation was so earth-shaking to so many people.
He also interviews jurors Anne-Marie McDermott and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet to get their perspectives on the win.
Some tidbits:
- The jurors didn’t fully grasp the enormity of the performance until midway through the first movement.
- McDermott says, “We were all joking that he has this turbo button that he can press whenever he needed it. From the very first note to the very end of the concerto, there was never any sense that he would lack power or speed. But it really all served the music.”
- The jurors were as electrified by the performance as the audience was, eager to get back to their hotel to talk about what they’d just witnessed.
Yunchan Lim backstage at the Cliburn Competition
Crescendo Teaser – Yunchan Lim Backstage
In 2022, director and producer Heather Wilk followed competitors at the Cliburn for a documentary called Crescendo.
In this footage, we see how nervous Yunchan Lim appears to be before his big final round performance.
“You excited?” conductor Marin Alsop asks him.
“I’m so nervous,” he answers.
“You know,” she says, “tomorrow it’s going to be over. So we have fun, huh? And I’ll be with you, okay? So just have fun.”
It’s a revealing glimpse into an intensely human moment of Lim’s career.
Yunchan Lim playing at the Van Cliburn Competition, with Marin Alsop as the conductor © Ralph Lauer/The Cliburn
How did Yunchan Lim win the Van Cliburn Competition?
In 2022, Piergiorgio Wilson, a pianist and community advocate for the Tonic app, made this video that explores how Lim won.
Unlike Ben Laude, Wilson doesn’t just focus on the Rachmaninoff performance. He also takes into account Lim’s repertoire selection, his fellow competitors, and the nature of piano competitions generally.
He also speaks with Juilliard-trained pianist Sarah Tuan, who has spent time on the international competition circuit.
In the video, they speak about the attitude Lim brought to the stage. Tuan notes:
“There was this sort of charm he had onstage, which was very attractive to the audience. Just very authentic, he wasn’t going up there…with the mindset of wanting to win or impress, but really just presenting all the hard work and dedication he put into his craft. And I think that truly won over everyone.”
Meet Yunchan Lim’s Host Dad at the Cliburn Competition
In 2025, Ben Laude visited Jeff Detweiler from the family that hosted Yunchan Lim during his stay in Fort Worth.
Some tidbits:
- Yunchan Lim’s mom stayed with her son through the competition. She would watch K-dramas while he was practicing. (She also did his laundry.)
- Detweiler would toast English muffins for him while he was practicing overnight.
- The family had no restriction on Lim’s practice time; they encouraged their guest to play whenever he’d like. During the competition, he typically practiced between early afternoon and early morning, around twelve to fourteen hours a day, with brief breaks sprinkled in.
- He practiced in short blocks over and over. In fact, he never played a single run-through of anything over the course of the entire competition!
- He stayed up all night practicing after his performance of the Liszt Transcendental Etudes.
- At one point, Detweiler asked him, “Why do you practice the Mozart so much?” Lim replied, “Mozart most difficult!” Fair enough!
Korean Broadcasting System Interview Before Results
Before the competition results were announced at the awards ceremony, the Korean Broadcasting System interviewed Yunchan Lim, offering a striking insight into his state of mind at the end of the competition.
When asked how he felt waiting for the results, he says:
“Actually, the result doesn’t matter to me at all. First of all, what’s probably more important to me than placing in the competition is that I’m contemplating what program to play next year. At the thought of playing the Goldberg Variations, the results aren’t really important now.”
He shares that he was exhausted during every stage of the competition (understandable, now that we know that he was playing twelve to fourteen hours a day!).
Yunchan Lim at the Van Cliburn piano competition © Richard Rodriguez/The Cliburn
Lim also reveals that in an ideal world, he wouldn’t be performing at all, just playing at home. His phrasing is blunt: “what I actually want is to live cut off from everything.”
He also says, “I really don’t want to be a popular pianist.”
Hopefully, he has found a way to come to terms with his sudden popularity!
Interview with Marin Alsop
In 2025, Ben Laude sat down with conductor Marin Alsop to talk to her about what conducting Yunchan Lim was like.
Some tidbits:
- “When I hear someone like Yunchan, I start to believe in reincarnation: you know, that sense that someone’s an old soul.”
- “I think that Yunchan loves practicing. I think if he could have a choice in life, he would just be alone on a mountaintop with his piano and just practice eight hours.”
- “He has an incredible sense of pacing, particularly in this Rachmaninoff concerto.”
- “[His Rachmaninoff performance] starts out very, very, like his personality, very modestly. And you think, oh, okay, that’s pleasant. You know, that’s nice. And really, he knows how to get the fire stoked and get it going. And he’s not afraid to really go for it. I mean, some of the tempi in the last movement are just mind-blowing that he can put all those notes in. It’s insane.”
- “I think for me, the most moving moments really are in the slow movement, where Yunchan’s sense of rubato is both organic and yet surprising. That’s something that you can’t teach people. You know, you can teach them, okay, let’s do this mathematically, slow down and speed up. You know, you can sort of make people understand that. But having that instinct of how to create a phrase that feels exactly correct, but surprising. I think that to me is his gift.”
Anderson and Roe’s Reflection on His Competition Performance
In the spring of 2023, famous piano duo Anderson and Roe had a conversation for the Cliburn competition that was posted on YouTube.
It’s a long and fascinating grab-bag of information, including excerpts from interviews with Lim, snippets from all rounds of his performance (beyond his blockbuster Rachmaninoff round), and behind-the-scenes commentary by Anderson and Roe, including screenshots of texts they sent while the competition was ongoing.
It’s basically a full-length documentary with commentary from Anderson and Roe sprinkled in. It’s great to have professional pianists speaking about a performance as a tape of it runs; it’s like watching a sports commentator.
This exchange with Lim after his preliminary round is priceless:
“What do you think when you’re onstage? What do you think about?”
“I’m trying to think about nothing.”
“So, pure?”
“Yes. And just calm down.”
“Do you get nervous when you play?”
“Oh, yes!”
Conclusion
For anyone trying to understand how Yunchan Lim won the Cliburn, why his Rachmaninoff third concerto went so viral, and what makes him one of today’s most talked-about pianists, these clips pull back the curtain a bit on a career-defining moment that will clearly continue to resonate across the classical music world for years to come.
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