Hong is a prizewinner of numerous international competitions, including the Vendome Prize at Verbier (winner), International Beethoven Competition Vienna (second prize), and Naumburg International Piano Competition (third prize).

Described as a “virtuoso, scaling realms… [with] sheer beauty of tone” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), he has appeared as soloist with orchestras including ORF-Vienna, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Camerata New York, Fort Worth, Richardson, Racine, Waco, Galveston, and Brazos Valley Symphonies.

Hong’s solo recitals reflect a commitment to sound as architecture itself - moving beyond outward virtuosic displays, into inner resonance and sympathetic clarity. His recital programs have been praised for “honesty and authenticity… and profound insight” (Sybille Barasso), and his new solo project entitled “Glowing in Stillness” debuts in the 2025–26 season.

A highly sought-after chamber musician, Hong appears regularly on national tours and mainstage

concerts with organizations such as Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, and Four Seasons. He is a member of the Bowers Program (2024–27) at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.



by: Sahun Sam Hong

This recital program of four masterworks is an open invitation for both audience and performer, to listen inwardly to the natural resonance from within. Intentional unguardness and emotional stillness can bring forth a profound inner connection and intensity, that force and effort cannot ever hope to achieve… Please join me in experiencing this inner journey of momentum, vigor, emotional torrent, painful dissonance, and utter ecstasy.

Philip Glass (1937-)
Etude No. 2
Etude No. 8

Philip Glass, a towering figure in minimalist composition, is a master of crafting soundscapes that distort and challenge our very perceptions of time and space. His Etudes, with their drone-like writing, invite us to realms where meditative repetition paves the path to heightened awareness in a focused and dynamic state of being.

Etudes No. 2 and 8 share the home pitch centers of B and C - in No. 2, these two notes lead a gentle and unwavering pulse that shifts between threes and fours in the ebb and flow of a continuous soundscape. Etude No. 8 takes the same B-C motive and offers a more emotionally expressive storyline with a richly contoured narrative arc and adds personal experience. As often found with the music of minimalist composers such as Pärt and Adams, the wonderfully paradoxical listening experience is that each iteration of repetition of is both the same and yet unrepeatable - this passing of time leads to the poignant, defeated conclusion of Etude No. 8

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Klavierstücke, Op. 119
Intermezzo in B Minor
Intermezzo in E Minor
Intermezzo in C Major
Rhapsody in E-flat Major

Johannes Brahms’ Four Pieces for Piano speak as four intimate confessions written near the end of Brahms’ life, a lonesome walk from darkness to triumph, navigating the complexities of the human experience through rich harmonies, interweaving rhythms, and simple yet emotionally stirring melodies.

The journey of the Four Piano Pieces begins with the profoundly melancholic quietude of the B minor Intermezzo, where slowly turning kaleidoscopic melodies and the juxtaposition of counterpoint provide a noir-esque picture of introspection and yearning, culminating in poignant acceptance from within the shadows. The second, E minor Intermezzo, follows with passages of anxiety, inner turbulence, and emotional vulnerability, offering a sincere and heartfelt song in the parallel E major to contrast the restlessness.

The C major Intermezzo is a flash of joy, with bright and crystalline clarity and effervescent lightness. This brief respite of unburdened playfulness comes as a sort of Scherzo movement within the structure of the piece. The set culminates in the E-flat Major Rhapsody, a journey of grand, sweeping dramatic oration. The tale moves through alternating moments of intense introspection and struggle, ultimately building upon its own momentum and power to triumphant, thunderous pronouncements. The ending, however, is in the sudden and terrifying parallel key of E-flat minor, mirroring the second Intermezzo in its inevitable balance of darkness and light.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Piano Variations (1930)

Aaron Copland's Piano Variations, described by Leonard Bernstein as “prophetic.. Harsh and wonderful”, is a true depiction of a musico-architectural “Concrete Jungle”. The Variations, quite differently from Copland’s Americana works, is a tightly constructed set of continuous variations featuring a spare vista of integrity, dissonance, and inevitability amid a jarring harmonic landscape. The bell-like dissonances of this piece dare the listener to directly confront the raw energy of chaos manifest, exploring discomfort and emotional intensity through a relentlessly powerful musical language. It is a work of unadorned honesty, reflecting the human spirit grappling with fundamental and terrifying truths.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo
II. Allegro molto
III. Adagio ma non troppo - Arioso dolente - Fuga. Allegro ma non troppo

Beethoven's late piano sonatas are profoundly personal and spiritual testaments, explorations of the human condition at its most vulnerable and triumphant. The Sonata Op. 110 is a particularly journeyful depiction of a profound pilgrimage out of darkness into light, a narrative of the spirit's capacity for rebirth in the face of utter despair. The sonata begins with a serene, singing lyricism, a movement of inner grace and profound tranquility mixed with shadows of darkness and sadness. This quickly gives way to a brief, defiant, shocking Beethovenian scherzo.

In the third movement, however, the true darkness descends - Beethoven expresses raw anguish and emotional brokenness through a dramatic recitative and the Klagender Gesang (mournful song), a passage of heart-wrenching pain and fragmented thought and feeling. The fugue, with its theme set like stepping-stones on a river, finds gradual solace from the desolation, but quickly collapses back into the state of utter desolation, its life force seemingly extinguished.

The "mournful song" returns in the lower G minor, and this time with more anguish but also more energized, and this fragile pulse gradually strengthens as if drawing on tenacious inner will. The fugue subject finds itself in the liminal space, inverted and disoriented… the counterpoint of reversed paradigm manages to find the path to ascension, glowing with a white-hot radiant light, overcoming all pain and sorrow to culminate  in one of music's most astonishing acts of spiritual resurrection.