San Francisco Classical Voice: Superstar Pianist Yekwon Sunwoo Tackles Prokofiev for SF Ballet

Claudia Bauer: “How can you play this music, which seems to require so much concentration, and also pay attention to what Martin asks you to do to modulate for the dancers onstage — especially given that there will probably be a few different casts, and you may have to modulate differently for each cast and performance?”

Yekwon Sunwoo: “The challenging part is the rehearsal with the dancers — how to change the tempo, and especially in this one — in the first movement — there’s a quite long cadenza for solo piano. For that, I’m guessing I will have to change a lot of, not necessarily the dynamics, but the tempo and some of the climactic points — how much time I’ll take getting into it, or how much force I will push into it. It will be fun. I like being more flexible. Being flexible helps any artist to be refreshed. It opens up a lot more layers. But definitely technically, it’s very, very, very challenging.”

Read the full interview here.