Seungmin Kang_Cellist

Fearless. Intense but sensitive virtuosity. Otherworldly and raw. Performancesso flammable she seems to ignite herself and her instrument.

Seung-min Kang made her orchestral debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra when she was eleven. Since then, she performed with other orchestras in Korea including Suwon Philharmonic and Incheon Philharmonic. Seung-min played as a soloist with, among others, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic. As a soloist or member of chamber ensemble, she was invited to the International Mariinsky Far East Festival, the Berlin- Kozerthaus, the Berlin Phillharmonie, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Ricardo Castro Festival, and the Seoul Spring Festival. She also gave the duo recitals with David Geringas in Germany and Switzerland. In October 2021, Seung-min will perform a solo recital at the Seoul Arts Center in Korea.

A laureate of the 2017 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium, Seung-min recorded Toshio Hosokawa’s Cello Concerto, “Sublimation”, as a part of the Queen Elisabeth Competition’s CD release, which attracted various medias such as Canvas, RTBF, Le Soir (Belgium), and Japan’s Strad Magazine. Her Dvořák’s Cello Concerto was one of the most viewed YouTube videos of the Competition that year. She was the fifth prize winner at the 2015 International Tchaikovksy Cello Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia, the first Korean prize winner in the cello division. Seung-min was also awarded the first prize at the First Gaspar Cassado International Cello Competition in 2006, first prize at the Johansen International Competition in 2003, the second prize at the Young Tchaikovsky Competition in 2002, and the special prize at the 2009 Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris.

After Seung-min won the Gaspar Cassado Competition, her recording (CD) was released by the Competition’s Committee in 2007 featuring, along with Cassado’s works, Cello Sonatas of Locatelli, Debussy, and Hindemith, and Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6. Seung-min also toured in Japan after the release of her CD. Seung-min has played Cello works of Dvořák, Haydn, Brahms, Schumann, Bach, Rachmaninoff, Chausson, Britten, and Schostakovich. Furthermore, she is a cellist committed to deliver a culturally diverse and modern/contemporary repertoire including works of Alfred Schnittke, Toshio Hosokawa, T. Mayuzumi, Pēteris Vasks, and Anatolijus Šenderovas.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Seung-min began playing cello at age eight and, skipping high school, gained special entrance to the Korean National University of Arts, where she studied with Myung-Wha Chung and Hyung Won Chang. In 2007, Seung-min moved to Berlin, Germany and continued her studies with David Geringas and Troels Svane at the Hochshule fur Musik Hanns Eisler where she received her diploma and Konzertexamen diploma.