《Pipe organ and Korean saenghwang Duo Concert》performance review

Organist Dong-ill Shin has been hailed as “one of the world’s most promising talents of his generation” (Echo Republicain, France) and as having “formidable discipline and considerable musicality” (Dallas Morning, USA) and “an amazing technique, sensibility, and talent” (ABC, Spain). He has been praised for his “impressive precision, brisk sense of purpose and deliberate avoidance of empty display” (The Straits Times, Singapore) and for having played “one of the best classical music concerts of the year” (Star Telegram, USA).
At age ten Shin made his concert debut as a pianist with The Busan Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Mozart’s Concerto in D minor, No. 20. Attracted by J. S. Bach’s music and the orchestra-like colors produced by the organ, he started his organ studies with Dr. Sun-woo Cho at age 14. He majored in organ performance and church music under Dr. Tong-soon Kwak at Yonsei University in Seoul and completed his Bachelor of Music degree in 1997.
Shin then studied in France with Jean Boyer and received the Diplôme National d’Etudes Supérieures Musicales from the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Lyon. His studies continued with Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris in the prestigious Cycle de Perfectionnement Program.

Shin is a prize winner of international competitions such as the Musashino-Tokyo International Organ Competition, the Prague Spring International Music Festival and Competition, the St. Albans International Organ Competition, and the Grand Prix de Chartres International Organ Competition. He has been a featured artist on KBS Radio in Korea, NHK Satellite Television in Japan, France Musique, Radio France, and MEZZO Television in France, Lithuanian National Television, Hungarian National Radio, Spanish National Radio, Bayerischer Rundfunk radio, Radio Luxembourg, Australian ‘Art and Sound’ Radio, and WCRB, UPR, KBYU, and Pipedreams in the USA. He has given numerous concerts in 23 states in the USA and in Latin America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and the Far East and has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Cité de la Musique and the Cathédrale de Notre Dame, Paris, the Bartok National Concert Hall, Budapest, the Meyerson Symphony Hall, Dallas, the Mariinsky Concert Hall, St. Petersburg, the Musashino Bunkakaikan, Tokyo, the Victoria Concert Hall, Singapore, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, the Forbidden City National Concert Hall, Beijing, the Lotte Concert Hall, Seoul, the Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Washington National Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City, First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, and the Melbourne Town Hall. He has been featured in numerous music festivals, including the Monaco International Organ Festival, the Chartres International Organ Festival, the St. Albans International Festival, the Nuremberg International Festival, the Festival du Comminges, and the International Bamboo Organ Festival.
Shin has played under the baton of Jean-Claude Casadessus, Yoel Levi, Hans Graf, Myungwhun Chung, and Thierry Fischer and has collaborated with other musicians, such as Sumi Cho and Yo Yo Ma. He has premiered new works by Unsook Chin and Joel Martinson and has been commissioning new works for organ and saenghwang. His collaboration with saenghwang player Hyoyoung Kim has been highly praised as a “wonderful collaboration between two instruments that have different backgrounds but have the same way of producing sound. They show how a Korean traditional instrument can marry with a typical Western instrument.”
Shin held music positions for over 10 years in the USA before moving back to his native South Korea in 2011. He is currently Professor of Organ and University Organist at Yonsei University, Seoul.