SEOUL — Pianist Lee Hun will perform Maurice Ravel's "Piano Concerto for the Left Hand" with a festival orchestra at the Icheon Young-Artist International Music Festival on May 2. Lee, described as South Korea's only known professional left-hand-only pianist, returned to performing after a 2012 stroke paralyzed his right side.

"I'm so, so nervous I could die. It's just one concerto but working with an orchestra has its own difficulties," Lee said of the upcoming performance. He has said the Ravel concerto is highly difficult for a pianist but that he has long been eager to play it.

In August 2012, Lee, then a doctorate candidate at the University of Cincinnati's music school, abruptly collapsed at his home and survived after extensive surgery. The stroke damaged about 60% of the left hemisphere of his brain, left him unable to move his right arm and leg, and caused temporary aphasia. He was later brought back to South Korea in a wheelchair, and after the stroke he worried about whether he would ever walk again.

In 2013, Lee returned to the piano after Chun Yung Hae, dean of the College of Music at Kyung Hee University, told him there were more than 1,000 piano pieces written for the left hand alone. He began practicing that same night and, after exhaustive practice, made a comeback as a one-handed pianist.

"He is a pianist so he must play the piano. He was completely hopeless and in despair, so I tried to give him some hope. But I didn't expect him to play as well as this," Chun said.

In 2016, Lee made a formal debut as a one-handed pianist at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, performing Camille Saint-Saëns' "6 Etudes for the Left Hand Alone" and playing "Amazing Grace" together with Chun, with Lee using his left hand and Chun her right. Since then he has given recitals, appeared on television programs, and written a memoir. He now walks without assistance and communicates relatively smoothly in Korean. Local media have dubbed him "Korea's Paul Wittgenstein," a reference to the Austrian pianist who lost his right arm in World War I and commissioned left-hand repertoire from composers including Ravel, Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev, and Benjamin Britten. Ravel's "Piano Concerto for the Left Hand" was among those commissions.

"He plays a sort of music that truly touches the heart of people and it's not about finger dexterity. I'm really curious what it was like when he played with both hands," said Lee Eungkwang, head of a cultural foundation responsible for the Icheon festival.

Lee Hun has said that before becoming a one-handed pianist he focused on perfecting skills to impress audiences, and now he focuses on conveying his emotions and interpretation of the music. He has said he hopes to make a two-handed comeback one day, and that he succeeded in pressing a piano key once with his right hand at a concert in November 2024. Medical prospects for him regaining use of his right hand are dim.