Soovin Kim violin

Award Winner 2005

American violinist Soovin Kim is increasingly sought after for the character, nuance, and excitement of his performances as concerto soloist, chamber musician and recitalist, both in the U.S. and abroad. Particularly known for his breadth of repertoire, Soovin Kim typically takes on everything from Bach to Paganini to the big romantic concertos to new commissions within a single season. In 2006-7, after his European tour with Christian Tetzlaff, subsequent projects range from recitals of the three Brahms sonatas and four Ives sonatas in Philadelphia to a performance of the two Schubert piano trios with pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn and cellist Sophie Shao as a part of the North Carolina Symphony’s Schubert Festival. Soovin Kim will release his second recording with Azica Records in early 2007, a French album of Faure and Chausson with pianist Jeremy Denk and the Jupiter Quartet. His first CD with Azica Records, Niccolò Paganini's demanding 24 Caprices for solo violin, was released in February 2006 and was named Classic FM magazine’s Instrumental Disc of the Month (“he emerges thrillingly triumphant…a thrilling debut disc.”). In past seasons he has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, North Carolina Symphony, Florida Philharmonic, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic and the KBS Symphony Orchestra. Soovin Kim is a chamber music performer of the first rank and devotes as much time as possible to such collaborations in each concert season. He has given solo performances at festivals across Europe including Colmar, Verbier, Reims, Montpellier and Schleswig-Holstein. He regularly spends summers at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. He also won the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Henryk Szeryng Foundation Career Award and first prize at the Paganini Competition. In addition to his discs with Azica Records, Soovin Kim was featured in another new recording on Stomp Music released in Korea in 2006: MIK Ensemble, a collection of new works by Solbong Kim, James Ra, Jae-Hyung Jung, and Yiruma, commissioned for and performed with his ground-breaking ensemble MIK (“Made in Korea”). He made a recent recording with cellists Janos Starker and Zuill Bailey of string quintets of Boccherini and Schubert released by Delos (DE 3344). Soovin Kim made his first recording with pianist Jeremy Denk for Koch-Discover in duo works by Schubert, Bartók, and Strauss. He plays the 1709 "ex-Kempner" Stradivarius.

Photograph taken by Woo-Ryong Cha