So Ryang

The pianist So Ryang was born in Seoul. Her father is a professor, secretary of state and advisor to the president of Korea, and her mother is an antiquities expert. When she was only five years old, So Ryang began playing the piano and in the following years won prizes in several national competitions. At the age of 16, she left Korea to study piano in the master class of Prof. Detlef Kraus. She graduated with a degree as a concert pianist. She received the first Folkwang-Prize and the first prize at the International Brahms-Competition in Hamburg. She then went to Vienna for her postgraduate studies where she graduated from the University of Music and Performing Arts with a master's degree.

As a well-known interpreter of Mozart she regularly presents his piano works, at Mozarthaus Vienna or Mirabell Palace in Salzburg. Furthermore she played recitals in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Barcelona, London, Rome, Hamburg, Vienna, Salzburg, Dresden and Berlin. Playing chamber music So Ryang appeared several times with members of Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra all over Europe. Playing chamber music, she has appeared several times with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra throughout Europe; performing piano concertos with various orchestras, such as the Folkwang Orchestra Essen and Austrian-Korean Philharmonic (founded in 1999 by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon) under conduction of Sascha Götzel, Brandenburgischen Staatsorchester, Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, the orchestra of the National Music Academy in Sofia (Bulgaria).

Additionally So Ryang became wellknown through some of her piano compositions (“Curse of fate” and “Stranded goods”) that had been selected for the adaption of old silent films at the Vienna film festival “VIENNALE”.

Her idea to present classical piano music to a wide audience at historic sites of major European cities, has inspired worldwide many pianists and spreaded also by them very soon. CDs with live recordings of these open-air concerts were produced by Preiser Records and sold as a bestseller. Former CEO of Preiser Records marked So Ryang as “most extraordinary pianist of Europe”.

In 2016, the artist toured Reykjavik, Iceland, accompanied by a German TV crew.

So Ryang's repertoire includes works by all the great piano composers such as Liszt, Schubert, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann, Grieg, Tchaikovsky and many others.