Sunwook Kim performs and conducts Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 5, and Helen Grime's Elegiac Inflections

In the Spring of 2025, the superb Chamber Orchestra of Europe embarks on an intercontinental tour with celebrated Korean pianist Sunwook Kim, who was just a teenager when he won the prestigious Leeds Competition in 2006, and who performs — and conducts! — Beethoven's complete Piano Concertos alongside contemporary orchestral works. This volume includes the stormy C minor Concerto, the immortal "Emperor" Concerto, and Helen Grime's moving, Scottish folk-inspired Elegiac Inflections.

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, a longtime favorite of audiences and performers alike, ratchets up the tension straight away with the piano's entrance in rapidly ascending scales, and never lets go through the final notes of the concluding Rondo — but on the way there, it features one of the composer's most sublimely romantic melodies in the E Major Largo. The "Emperor" Concerto, Beethoven's fifth and final concerto for the piano, is one of the most important bridges between the Classical and Romantic eras and one of the most beloved of all concertos. Dedicated to the composer’s friend and student Archduke Rudolf, the "Emperor" was composed in Vienna during the Napoleonic Wars, a period of intense upheaval which, Beethoven wrote, "has affected me body and soul… nothing but drums, cannons, and human misery in every form." The result is a masterpiece of heroic proportions, with huge dynamic contrasts, technical brilliance, and profound emotional depth. Explosive and fast-changing moods also characterize contemporary Scottish composer Helen Grime’s Elegiac Inflections for wind ensemble. Grime focused on the "highly virtuosic and intensely lyrical capacities of the group" to craft this deeply felt work in two movements.