Ian Yungwook Yoo was born in 1977 in South Korea, currently he lives in New York. In the years 1996-2001 he studied with Jerome Lowenthal at the famous Juilliard School of Music in New York. He then continued his studies with Solomon Minkovski at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received the degree of Master of Music (2004) and where he is currently undertaking the Doctoral of Musical Art Program as a recipient of the Elva Van Geldar Memorial Scholarship. In 2001 Yung Wook Yoo released his first commercial CD under the Naxos label, featuring piano transcriptions by Franz Liszt. Mr. Yoo has been laureate of several national and international competitions. He was the First Prize winner by unanimous vote of the 13th Paloma O'Shea Santander International Piano Competition in Spain (1998), he was awarded the second prize at the International E-Competition in the United States (1995), fourth prize at the Richter Competition in Russia (2006). In December 2007 he became the winner of the 2nd Beethoven Piano Competition in Bonn.