HYUNKUN CHO

Cellist Hyunkun Cho is from Gwangju (South Korea) and lives in Barcelona (Catalonia). He began playing the classical cello at 15 and graduated from the Korea National University of Arts with Myungwha Chung.

His path led him to the Berlin University of the Arts, where he studied with Markus Möllenbeck baroque cello and received chamber music lessons with Prof. Mitzi Meyerson.

He continued his studies at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona with Bruno Cocset and Emmanuel Balssa for historical cello and Chamber music with Pedro Memelsdorff, and he did a specialized degree at the Geneva University of Music with Bruno Cocset.

Hyunkun Cho has created various ensembles as a musical leader and played in others. He has been awarded several times, such as:

  • With the ensemble “La Prosperina”, they won the 1st prize for Early Music and the Audiences Award in Saarbrücken in 2010.
  • With the ensemble “Matis”, they won the 2nd prize at the International Telemann Competition for Chamber Music Ensemble of 2013.
  • He was awarded at the Berliner-Bach competition in 2013. The same year, he got a prize from the York Early Music Competition with Ensemble Nexus-Baroque and was invited to a musician residency in Ambronay.
  • In 2014, he won the Early Music competition in Yamanashi, Japan, with Camerata D’Amico, a classical period quartet.
  • As a soloist, he was awarded 3rd prize at the International Competition Musica Antiqua Bruges 2014.
  • With his new Ensemble Chorda Elegans, he participated in the Berliner-Bach competition 2018; he was awarded three prizes: 1st prize, audience prize, and best interpretation prize.
  • He won the 1st prize, audience prize, and special prize at the International Telemann Competition in 2019 in Magdeburg.

He has recently collaborated with Pedro Memelsdorff and his Arlequin Philosophe ensemble on their concert-seminar tour “Opera and Slavery in the French Caribbean” / “Kourou, Musica nel naufragio di un’utopia migratoria, Guiana francese 1763-1765” (2019-2024) in Venice, Potsdam, New Orleans, Wroclaw, Basel, and Berlin/Postdam; he has carried out coaching tasks for the musicians of the Freiburg Conservatory orchestra at its Early Music Festival, with Jean Christophe Dijoux (2023); and has published with Michael Form and the Au Pieds du Roy ensemble “Bach: Recovered Chamber Concertos” (2023). He has also collaborated on the seminars “Franz Schubert, ammiratore di Beethoven” (2023) with Pedro Memelsdorff and Andreas Staier, and “Pulcinella musico e filosofo. Arie e cantate comiche napoletane nel Settecento” (2023), with Pedro Memelsdorff and Pino De Vittorio. His most recent published work is “A la Mode Française” with Patrimonio Sonoro (2024).

“The U.S.A.’s hottest baroque band.” –CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE (UK)