‘My last chance’: Eric Lu on overcoming pressure to win Chopin Competition on second try decade later

After Chopin win, Lu sets sights on Schubert sonata, Beethoven concertos, Rachmaninoff
American pianist Eric Lu returned to the 2025 Chopin Competition 10 years after taking fourth prize, a move that fits a familiar story in classical music: artists coming back to one of the world’s toughest stages, pushed by ambition, pressure and a highly competitive field.

“I felt that while my career was going well, it was not at the level that I have the ambitions for,” the 27-year-old pianist told reporters Monday in Seoul.

But when the final results came out, Lu’s story took a turn. Instead of being weighed down by expectations, he managed to overcome the pressure of returning. He turned that risk into a major victory, becoming only the second American to win the competition and the first musician in its history to earn prizes in two separate editions.

Lu — in Seoul for a series of concerts, including a performance with the KBS Symphony Orchestra under Grammy-winning conductor Leonard Slatkin, followed by a winner’s tour through Ulsan and Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, last weekend, and Seoul on Wednesday — described the competition as the greatest pressure he has ever faced.

“When I first thought about (reentering the Chopin Competition) 2 1/2 years ago — just imagining myself going on stage — I would get nervous instantly. My heart would start racing, exactly the way it does right before I perform,” he recalled.

Many of the initial reactions he received were not so encouraging — often along the lines of “I wouldn’t do it myself,” or, in his parents’ case, an immediate, “Oh, no, no.”

Lu’s career had already taken off after he won fourth prize in the competition at 17 years old and first prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2018. He performed with the Boston, London and Chicago symphony orchestras, appeared at Wigmore Hall, the BBC Proms, the Hollywood Bowl and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and released two albums with Warner Classics featuring works by Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Brahms.

Stronger than the racing heartbeat and the discouraging reactions, however, was his desire to try again — this time as a more mature musician.

“I felt an emotional connection to this stage because I had so many good memories from 2015. I was so young then. I felt like I played for so many people at such a fragile age in my life when I wasn’t really ready to do it,” he noted. “So I felt OK this time, I’m more ready, but of course, this time was with far more pressure.”

The idea turned into a plan about a year and a half ago, bringing with it a constant internal tug-of-war. He thought through every permutation and potential outcome so long, thinking through all the pros and cons. But it never reached the point where he wanted to give up completely.

“Maybe at one point it was 80 percent ‘don’t go’ and 20 percent ‘go,’ but it never became 100-to-zero,” he recalled. “As I invested more and more time into the repertoire, I felt that you only live once — this was my last chance to do it.”

When he arrived in Warsaw for the competition, the pressure only intensified. “I felt like I wanted to leave the city,” he said, describing how the anxiety grew rather than easing.

The real crisis came just before the final round. After suffering a finger injury and catching a cold, he fell ill enough that his performance — originally set for Oct. 15 — was rescheduled to the very end and moved to Oct. 16. Feeling unwell and overwhelmed, he told his manager that he should withdraw. But in the end, he could not bear to walk away from the hard work he had poured into the competition.

For the final, he performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat Major, Op. 61.

And what followed became a very different story.

Lu became only the second pianist in the competition’s history to win with the second concerto — the first being his own teacher, Dang Thai Son, the first Asian pianist ever to win this prestigious event.

He appears smiling in the photos from the ceremony, but Lu said it was not until Oct. 28 — at his Berlin Philharmonic debut, one week after the final — that he finally felt he could “properly enjoy a little bit.”

Korean pianist Cho Seong-jin, winner of the 17th Chopin Competition in 2015 when the two became friends, was there for the celebration — just a week after traveling to Warsaw to support Lu before the second round.

“He was a very, very wonderful supporter throughout the whole experience, and even afterward,” Lu said. Before the second round, Cho visited with Lu to cheer him on as he played a run-through of the polonaise.

Reflecting on the decade between his two Chopin Competition appearances, Lu describes his artistic transformation as an organic process.

“I wasn’t consciously trying to change, but change happens naturally,” he said. “When you live with music for so long, your understanding deepens, and you show different sides of yourself at different stages of life. Experience gives you more assurance about who you are and what you want to say.”

What has remained constant is his artistic purpose.

“Fundamentally, you want to express the emotional world of the composer — their psychology at the moment of writing — and transmit that to people on an intuitive level. That was my goal from the beginning. The goal doesn’t change, but how you do it does,” he added.

With a historic win secured, Lu said he is looking ahead to the repertoire he hopes to learn and share.

“One project I definitely want to take on in the next few years is Schubert’s last piano sonata, D. 960,” he said. “I’d love to finish learning all the Beethoven concertos and play more Russian music — especially Rachmaninoff.”

“And Bach,” he added. “Other than Schubert, he’s perhaps my absolute favorite composer. I haven’t played much of him yet, so I’d love to explore more.”

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