Pianist HaeSun Paik has been hailed as a “sensitive and thinking musician with stunning virtuosity” (Los Angeles Times), and a “big and individual personality” (New York Times) whose performances are “a wonder — elastic, mercurial, charged with meaning, surprising” (Boston Globe) and “a rare example of technique actually serving both idea and feeling, head and heart” (Musical America). Having won top prizes at international piano competitions including the Queen Elisabeth, Leeds, William Kapell, and the Tchaikovsky, Ms. Paik has performed around the world in solo recitals, concerti with orchestra, and as a chamber musician.
Ms. Paik has appeared as a soloist under the batons of Mikhail Pletnev, Sir Simon Rattle, Vassily Sinaisky, Dmitri Kitaenko, Stanislav Skrowaczewski, and Myung-Whun Chung, to name a few. She has performed with the Boston, National, London, KBS, NHK, Belgian National, and City of Birmingham Symphonies; the Munich, Radio France, Tokyo, Warsaw, and Moscow Philharmonic Orchestras; and the Russian National Orchestra, among others.
Ms. Paik has frequently performed at prestigious venues across the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Jordan Hall in Boston. Her recent international tours have taken her to major concert halls worldwide, such as the Berlin Philharmonic Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein. A superb collaborator, Ms. Paik has performed with many distinguished musicians, including cellists Anner Bylsma, Mischa Maisky, Myung-wha Chung, violist Nobuko Imai, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, the Borromeo String Quartet, and the Jerusalem Quartet.
Ms. Paik has recently performed all five Beethoven Concerti and the Triple Concerto with the New York Classical Players, and has also performed both Brahms Concerti in a single concert. She has recorded the complete works by Beethoven for cello and piano with Laurence Lesser, which have been released by Bridge Records. Her debut and subsequent solo recordings are available on the EMI label.
One of the most sought-after pedagogical influences in Korea, Ms.Paik was the youngest pianist of her generation to be appointed as a music professor at Seoul National University. Currently, she serves as co-chair of the piano department at the New England Conservatory (NEC), after teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Music for several years. She is also holding an artist-in-residence position at Daegu Catholic University and served as the artistic director of the Busan Music Festival in Korea. She also teaches and performs at many prestigious summer festivals, including Morningside Music Bridge, PianoSummer at New Paltz, Chautauqua Institution, the New York International Keyboard Institute & Festival, Ishikawa Music Festival in Japan, and the PyeongChang Music Festival in Korea.
Ms. Paik is a recipient of the 2019 Korean National Academy of Arts’ Music Award, the nation’s highest honor for Korean musicians. Her life-essay, “Master of My Own Frustrations,” was published in Korea in 2023. In 2025, she was appointed Artist Ambassador of the Independence Hall of Korea to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Korean independence.
Ms. Paik graduated from New England Conservatory under the guidance of Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun. Her artistic development was further influenced by her studies at the International Piano Foundation in Lake Como, Italy.
