Harvard lit student and pianist Kim Se-hyun: 'I wrote a poem for every Chopin étude'

He wrote haiku — 17-syllable Japanese verse — for each of Chopin's études as he worked through them one by one, capturing in short poems the images and emotions each piece stirred in him.

"Playing them over and over, the études gave me poetic inspiration," he said. "But I no longer look at those haiku now. I think I've broken free of that framework and learned to go with the flow more freely, guided by the mood and inspiration of the moment."

Kim Se-hyun is 19 years old, enrolled at the New England Conservatory in Boston while double-majoring in English literature at Harvard University. "Literature and music share the common thread of storytelling," he said. "Literature itself has often drawn inspiration from composers' works — in my case, it was the other way around."

Kim shot to international attention last year when he swept the Long-Thibaud International Competition in France with a unanimous jury vote, and he has now released his debut album. Out on Warner Classics, the record pairs Chopin with Gabriel Fauré — including Kim's own piano arrangement of Fauré's song "Après une rêve" — and closes with Charles Trenet's chanson "À Paris au mois de mai."

Meeting the press ahead of the album's release, Kim said he never imagined the milestone would come at his age. "Everyone who studies piano dreams of putting out a record someday. I never thought it would happen for me this young, so it still doesn't feel real," he said. "I'm just grateful to be able to leave behind a record of this moment."

Making his first album raised no shortage of questions, which he worked through while writing the liner notes himself. "Endless questions came to mind — should I be like a florist recommending different bouquets to suit each customer's taste, or should I lure the listener into an unknown garden and awaken a sense of wonder, or should this be an invitation to an odyssey leading into a unified artistic vision and a vast landscape?" he said.

The album is not simply a document of a young pianist's technique and musicality at the threshold between boyhood and adulthood — it cuts to the core of who Kim Se-hyun is and what he believes. "The first question was which composer's music to include," he said. "I centered the album on Chopin and paired him with Fauré, who was deeply influenced by him."

Kim has said he entered the Long-Thibaud Competition partly because he wanted to go to Paris, and Paris was indeed the album's starting point. His connection to the city runs deep. In 2023, the year he won the Cleveland International Piano Competition for Young Artists, Paris was also where he gave his first European performance. That winter he wandered the city's streets, and one walk left a lasting impression. "On the way back from the Shakespeare and Company bookshop to my hotel, I had to cross the Seine, and the evening view of Paris and the river reflected in the water was extraordinary," he said. "That image of the city mirrored in the water became an inspiration for my performance the next day." Having visited Paris roughly 10 times, he said the city has become a "special place" for him.

That is why he paired Chopin with Fauré. "None of the three of us — Chopin, Fauré, or I — was born in Paris, yet we all ultimately found our way there," he wrote in the album notes. "That city opened the door to each of our possibilities and, across the passage of time, still connects us."

Chopin's études form the backbone of the debut album. Kim built the record around the 12 études of Op. 25, surrounding them with pieces he describes as "songs, dances, or works that contain both elements."

Of the 12 études, he named the first and third as the ones that best express who he is right now. The first is commonly nicknamed the "Aeolian Harp," but for Kim it conjures "cotton candy lifted into a cloudless pink sky" — a childhood memory of being lost in the sweetness of the treat. The third brought to mind "a pony dreaming of becoming a unicorn." These fleeting, fragmentary images are the ones he captured in his short poems.

He says he relied on imagination throughout the recording process, and he urges listeners to do the same — to "let their imagination run free, without restraint or embarrassment." The reason, he explains, comes down to one proposition: Einstein's dictum that "imagination is more important than knowledge."

"I came across that quote during a lesson and thought it was absolutely right," Kim said. "Until now I had been trying to understand and analyze music, but I want to move beyond that framework and imagine more freely. In many cases, freedom is the ultimate goal of an artist."

The album also reveals his perfectionism. "I paid close attention to every detail — the instrument, the playing, the sound, the editing," he said with a laugh. "Some people leave all of that entirely to the professionals, but that's not in my nature. I checked everything one by one, and the process took much longer than I expected."

The album closes with Charles Trenet's "À Paris au mois de mai," a song Kim has loved for years. After winning the Long-Thibaud Competition, as he prepared for a Bastille Day performance, he told his teacher — Dang Thai Son, the first Asian winner of the Chopin Competition — that he wanted to play it. His teacher waved him off.

"Dang Thai Son said that some pieces can be learned, but a song like this is one you can only truly understand after absorbing French culture, life, and everything that comes with it — he was worried," Kim recalled. "But when I played it for him at our first lesson, he was surprised. After that, when I asked whether I could perform it anywhere, he said, 'You can play it wherever you like.' That's why I have such a special attachment to it," he said, laughing.

The word Kim returns to most often these days is "freedom." Whether choosing repertoire or interpreting music, he follows his heart rather than searching for a correct answer, pursuing a freedom that pushes past limits. Stripping away comes before showing more.

His days are relentlessly full, but the piano always comes first. Balancing school and a performance career makes time management essential. During the semester he practices in the morning and at midday, attends classes in the afternoon, then returns to the piano and practices until 10 p.m. "I always feel short on time," he said. "That's why I have to decide what my priorities are — and for me, it's always the piano."

His performance schedule since the debut album's release is packed. He is collaborating with conductor Chung Myung-whun eight times in Korea this year alone, with the next appearance Thursday with the KBS Symphony Orchestra under Chung's baton. Next year he is set to perform with the Tokyo Philharmonic and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. On Sept. 6 he will give a debut album release recital at Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul.

"I want to keep studying with a spirit of serving the music, and to perform in a way that puts the composer — not the performer — at the center," Kim said.