Pianist Cho Seong-jin’s new Chopin album sells out before release

February 22, 2016
The new album containing pianist Cho Seong-jin's award-winning performance at last year's Chopin Competition has sold out before its official release, the album's distributor said Monday.

The new album containing pianist Cho Seong-jin’s award-winning performance at last year’s Chopin Competition has sold out before its official release, the album’s distributor said Monday.

SEOUL (Yonhap) — The new album containing pianist Cho Seong-jin’s award-winning performance at last year’s Chopin Competition has sold out before its official release, the album’s distributor said Monday.

The 21-year-old prodigy became the first South Korean to win the world’s top piano competition in October last year in Poland.

The first batch of 20,000 copies sold out through online subscription sales and offline stores’ preorders, according to C&L Music, the official distributor of the recording. Now it has ordered more copies.

The new album to be released on Tuesday contains Cho’s live recording of his performance under the label “Fryderyk Chopin Institute.”

In the recordings, Cho’s performances from his preliminary round on Oct. 3 to the final round on Oct. 14 are featured. They include his interpretation of Piano Concerto No. 1 and Mazurka, Fantasy and Ballad.

The most notable track is the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1, a live recording of Cho’s Gala concert on Oct. 21, said C&L Music.

The upcoming recording is Cho’s second album, following one released under the Deutsche Grammophon (DG) label in November.

All 50,000 copies of his live album available in South Korea sold out six days after it was released worldwide last year.

As of Feb. 22, the sales of the album through DG have surpassed 90,000 copies, and are likely to reach 100,000 copies in the near future, according to the DG distributor, Universal Music.