Conductor Yoon Han-kyeol, 29, became the first Korean to win the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award, a prestigious prize for young conductors, in Salzburg, Austria, on Sunday.

“Yoon Han-kyeol’s conducting has charisma, is well-prepared and excellent in skill,” said the jury at the main auditorium of the Mozarteum Foundation after Sunday’s final round of the competition. “Watching him conduct, we could feel music was flowing out of his heart instead of looking like he was just pretending to conduct music.”

Yoon during the final round conducted an hour-long program comprised of four pieces: Gioachino Rossini’s “Overture from Il barbiere di Siviglia”; Mozart’s “Ah se in ciel, benigne stelle” aria for soprano and orchestra, K. 538; Shin Dong-hoon’s “Of Rats and Men”; and Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 3 A minor op. 56.”

The Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Awards is a biannual event that is open to conductors between ages 21 and 35. This year, 323 conductors from 54 countries competed. Finalists were narrowed down to Yoon, Vitali Alekseenok from Belarus and Tobias Wögerer from Austria.

The final winner receives a cheque for 15,000 euros ($16,513) and the opportunity to conduct concerts at the 2024 Salzburg Festival with the renowned ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna.

Yoon is a conductor, composer and pianist born in Daegu. After finishing high school in Korea, he studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich, Germany.

Upon graduating, Yoon became the youngest-ever recipient of the Neeme Jarvi Prize at the 2019 Gstaad Menuhin Festival and received conducting invitations from Switzerland’s Basel Chamber Orchestra and Basel and Bern Symphony Orchestras.

Yoon made his debut as a professional conductor last year through the Bern Symphony Orchestra and the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra and assisted renowned conductor Simon Rattle on the European tour of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

He is currently signed under the prominent music agency Askonas Holt, which also represents conductors Simon Rattle and Daniel Barenboim and cellist Yo Yo Ma.

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]