Premiered at the 12th Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, Warsaw, in March 2008, Jeajoon Ryu’s Sinfonia da Requiem was hailed as “a masterpiece” by Krzysztof Penderecki and enthusiastically received by the Festival audience with a ten-minute standing ovation. A work of searing intensity and magisterial assurance, it matches in emotional scope the Korean-born composer’s Violin Concerto No. 1, the soloist for which, fellow Korean So-Ock Kim, the youngest ever winner of the gold medal in the prestigious Shell/LSO Competition, plays an exquisite 1666 Stradivarius violin.