[Actually] How many Korean contest winners are there?

The attention paid to pianist Yunchan Lim, who recently won the Van Cliburn Competition, is particularly high.

It's probably not just because of her young age of 18 and her personal story of pure domesticism.

The video of the contest performance left a big impression.

The video of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, which he performed in the final, went viral and garnered more than 1.7 million views on YouTube in three days. 

Even if you don’t know figure skating, you instinctively know the excellence of Kim Yuna, so Lim Yun-chan’s performance was just that.

You will be stunned.

It presents a bold, daring and immersive performance unlike the typical thoughtful, discreet and well-ordered Korean pianist.

There is a rare star quality.

But he is not frivolous.

The maturity of making eye contact with the conductor and centering on him makes the age of 18 overshadowed.

As columnist Jed Distler of the classic magazine Gramophone wrote, "We repeat the phrase 40-year old in an 18-year old body."

Articles related to it have been pouring in every day since the victory.

The word 'K-Classic' even came out saying that Korea is sweeping the music contest.

On the 5th, cellist Ha-Young Choi won the Queen Elizabeth Competition, which is called the world's top three competitions.

It's a series of bad news.

We're not the only ones praising ourselves.

Commentator Buddy Bray, who relayed the Van Cliburn Competition, used the expression 'Korean Phenomenon Im Yoon-chan'.

Of the 12 semi-finalists of the Van Cliburn Competition, 4 were Koreans.

SBS Fact Check The truth is, the team usually does fact-checking in the political and social fields, but there seems to be no reason not to call it the cultural field. 

Like many media reports, we fact-checked whether Korean musicians are really sweeping the competition.

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To this end, the team decided to check the nationalities of the prestigious music competition winners.

The problem is the criteria for the 'prestigious music competition'.

Usually, competitions affiliated with the WFIMC, the World Federation of International Music Competitions, are used as the standard, but when I checked the website, the number reached 115.

There were quite a few contests that did not properly record the winners even if they were a member of WFIMC.

So, we used the commonly known 'World's Top 3 Competition Winners' as the standard.

Chopin Competition, Queen Elizabeth Competition and Tchaikovsky Competition.

Although it is not an exhaustive survey, we decided that it was a meaningful sample.

For reference, the Tchaikovsky Competition held in Russia was recently withdrawn from WFIMC in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it did not affect the analysis as the last competition was held in 2017. 

The analysis target was based on the 'winner'.

Each competition, each instrument, and each contestant's skill sets the winners differently, but in general, the 6th place is often the winner.

The analysis period was set as 'the last 20 years' from 2002 to now.

Considering that the time when many Korean winners were produced was in the early 2000s.

Of course, there have been winners before that.

In 1974, Myeong-Hoon Jeong won the second prize in the piano section of the Tchaikovsky Competition, and it is a famous anecdote that a car parade was held from the airport to Seoul City Hall to celebrate this.

That's probably proof that winning a contest was rare at the time.

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After placing 2nd in the Tchaikovsky Piano Division in 1974, Myung-Hoon Jeong is performing in a car parade.

He is now regarded as a world-class conductor.

Let's take a closer look at the analysis results.

Since 2002, the number of winners in the world's three largest competitions has been counted as 286.

Of these, 16 were dual citizenship.

By nationality, including dual citizenship, Russia had the most with 72, followed by Korea with 36.

23 from the United States, 20 from France, 16 from Japan, and 15 from China.

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In the Chopin Competition, there were 26 new winners in the past 20 years, and for Koreans, brothers Lim Dong-min and Lim Dong-hyeok shared 3rd place in 2005, and Seong-jin Seong won the title in 2015.

Since the Chopin Competition only competes for the piano, there are few winners.

The Queen Elizabeth Competition had a total of 116 winners, with 15 Koreans.

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Pianist Seong-Jin Cho won the 2015 Chopin Competition.

The reason why there are so many contest winners from Russia is probably because of the outstanding skills of Russian musicians.

Russia has a pretty strong gifted education system, not only in music but also in various arts, and is famous for rigorous education.

However, the impact of good results at the Tchaikovsky Competition held in their home country cannot be ignored.

The Tchaikovsky Competition has received 144 prize winners over the past 20 years, of which 53 are Russian nationals, or 37%.

Excluding the Tchaikovsky Competition, if you count only the winners of the two competitions, 18 Koreans (15 Queen Elizabeth, 3 Chopin) and 17 Russians (13 Queen Elizabeth, 4 Chopin) are counted.

In fact, within the music world, there has always been a problem with the 'Russian bias' of the Tchaikovsky Competition, and it is also true that the competition's authority has declined for this reason.

The organizers of the Tchaikovsky Competition also acknowledge this.

The organizers traced the history of the contest on the website, diagnosing that the jury was composed mainly of professors from the Moscow Conservatory since the 1990s, and the credibility of the contest has been greatly damaged due to protectionism.

The protectionism of the jury consisting of 5-6 professors from the Moscow Conservatory was very prominent.

The Tchaikovsky Competition, which stood shoulder to shoulder with the Chopin Competition and the Queen Elizabeth Competition, was losing its credibility and moral authority.

At least the protectionism of the Competition jury comprising five - six Professors of the Moscow Conservatory became very noticeable.

the Tchaikovsky Competition was losing professional credibility and the moral authority that had placed it on a par with the world largest competitions such as the International Chopin Piano Competition (Warsaw) or the Queen Elizabeth Competition (Brussels). 

We also looked at each instrument. 

In the last 20 years, a total of 60 violinists have won prizes in the world's three major competitions, of which 11 were Koreans.

The piano is 11 out of 91 people.

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The following is a summary of the Korean winners of the top three world competitions in the last 20 years.

For reference, pianist Donghyuk Lim was nominated for 3rd place at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in 2003, but gave up the award due to unfair judging, and the organizers canceled the prize.

The table below includes only performers recorded as prizes.

Violinist Shin Jia won the prize at her previous name, Shin Hyeon-su.

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I haven't done a full-scale survey, but if you broaden your horizons to other competitions, you'll probably get a lot more prizes from Koreans.

The news of winning the world's top 3 competitions was heard every day from other prestigious competitions.

Last month, violinist Inmo Yang won the Sibelius International Competition, and last year, pianist Jaehong Park won first place at the Busoni Competition in Italy.

Pianist Hyungmin Seo won the Beethoven Competition in Germany, and Suyeon Kim won the Montreal Competition in Canada.

Even if it's just the winners.

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Violinist Inmo Yang won the Sibelius Competition last month.

There is no need to rank the arts, but the results of Korean competitions based on the data of the winners can be evaluated as 'overwhelming'.

Especially given our barren classical music market.

It is surprising in itself that Korea, a country on the outskirts of classical music, produces more winners than performers in Europe, the heart of classical music.

Thierry Loro, a Belgian music journalist who has been broadcasting the Queen Elizabeth Competition for 25 years, has produced two documentaries on the subject of musical talent in Korea.

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Yunchan Lim, a pianist who won the Van Cliburn Competition.

In the 21st century, starting with the appearance of brothers Lim Dong-hyeok and Lim Dong-min, Chopin Chopin Competition winner Seong-jin Seong, and Lim Yun-chan…

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Even if you do not use the expression 'K-Classic', it has already been proven that Korea is a country that nurtures musicians who can handle musical instruments well. 

However, music is not a sport where you can complete your career by winning a medal.

The secrets of the K-Classic that are covered in the media, such as the Korean-style gifted education system and the dedication of parents, are full, but they also harbor an empty shadow.

It's probably a matter of artistic base, or to be more precise, cultural diversity.

Classical music is still far from our daily life.

Korea is a 'competition powerhouse' but not a 'classical music powerhouse'.

Few performers survive in the cramped classical music market.

Our classical music environment is barren. 

In an interview with SBS culture reporter Kim Soo-hyun, Lim Yun-chan said, "I didn't want to win, I wanted to share my music."

The 18-year-old boy's gaze looking at the competition is sublime in itself, but furthermore, his music is a lever that broadens the artistic base. I wish you could

Because of this competition, I have made several acquaintances who are looking for Liszt and Rachmaninoff.

There are also more people sharing the contest video on social media.

Once again, congratulations to Yunchan Lim on the win.

Thanks to this, the eighteen days of the contest were happy.

I hope you don't be embarrassed by the sudden popularity, and walk slowly like your own bold and daring music.