Pianist Park Yeon-min, 31, has won the first prize at the 2020/2021 George Enescu International Competition’s piano discipline on Sunday.

By winning the competition, Park will receive 15,000 euros ($18,000) in prize money, and an invitation to the 2022 George Enescu Festival. She was followed by Adela Liculescu from Romania and Marcin Wieczorek from Poland, who came in second and the third, respectively.

After studying at Seoul National University, Park earned her master’s degree at the Hochschule fur Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. She is currently studying at the same institution.

She has long earned recognition in the classical music scene, winning the first prize from the 40th Joongang Music Competition in 2014.

The George Enescu International Competition, held in Bucharest, Romania biennially, awards prizes in four disciplines, piano, violin, cello and composing. It was founded in 1958 in honor of composer-violinist George Ensecu (1881-1955) who was born in Romania.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the semifinal and final rounds of last year’s competition were postponed to this year, under the name of 2020/2021 George Enescu International Competition. 

Meanwhile, cellist Han Jae-min, 14, became the youngest winner of the first prize in the cello discipline on May 15. He is the youngest winner ever of the whole competition. He is studying at the Korea National University of Arts.

Violinist Wee Jae-won, 21, came in second place for the violin discipline on May 19. Wee is currently studying at The Juilliard School.

By Im Eun-byel (silverstar@heraldcorp.com)