South Korean pianist Yeon-Kyung Kim explores the diverse branches of classical music. She has performed at venues in the U.S., and in South Korea, and enjoys performing music outside the canon and working with living composers. In 2025, she will present a solo recital comprised of character pieces by contemporary
American, African, Korean, and European composers.
As a sought-after chamber musician, Kim has collaborated with diverse instrumentalists and singers. She recently recorded and performed an album of horn and piano music with Thomas and Tricia Jöstlein, musicians of St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. She also has been featured on various faculty recitals at Western Illinois University, where she recently had served as a full-time staff pianist and coached student chamber groups. As an advocate of Korean art songs, she has worked on them with students and professionals who are native English speakers. In 2025, she is presenting them at the College Music Society (CMS) conferences with Janani Sridhar, soprano. Now living in Champaign, IL, work with musicians of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She also serves as a collaborative pianist at DePauw University, IN.
Kim is a 1st prize winner in Chamber music at Seoul Art Concours, where she played as an initial member of Quartet Y. Ms. Kim also served as a rehearsal pianist at CCM (University of Cincinnati) Opera under the supervision of Marie-France Lefebvre and Kathy Kelly, where she performed William Bolcom’s Dinner At Eight in two piano version. Her coaches include Kenneth Griffths, Anne Epperson, and Amy Cheng, to name a few. Kim was featured at Max M. Fisher Hall in Detroit for the Beethoven Sonata Marathon of Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She also presented at masterclasses for John O’Conor, André Watts, Peter Takács, Norman Krieger, Sphinx Quartet, Warren Jones, and Jonathan Feldman.
Kim believes that classical music should come closer to people in a more active way, and classical music is relevant. She performed at numerous outreach concerts for Michigan community including Michigan Performance Outreach Workshop. In Cincinnati, she directed Concert Number One, bringing new musicians out of the Conservatory and presenting to the city audience to break the barrier.
Kim is an experienced teacher in a group piano classroom and a private teaching studio. During her time at CCM Secondary Piano Department, not only has she taught multiple group piano classes and private lessons for music majors and non-music majors, she also created a new syllabus for an online course. She opened up her private online studio for students at a distant.
Her passion and curiosity in teaching led her to study piano pedagogy with Dr. Michelle Conda. Moreover, she presented her research on teaching Leonard Bernstein’s Anniversaries at national and regional conferences by Frances Clark Center (NCKP) and Music Teachers Association (OMTA, SWOMTA). She also presented at the MTNA National Conference as a CCM Collegiate Chapter. Most recently, her article on asynchronous teaching video was approved by American Music Teacher, a peer-reviewed journal of MTNA.
Having realized the importance of educating young musicians as well-rounded artists, she spent three consecutive summers at Indiana University Piano Academy (IUPA) as a live-in counselor. At IUPA, she developed her perspective on piano camps and leadership by acting as a residential supervisor of students and other counselors, coaching students’ practice sessions, and observing countless masterclasses. She also spent a year in Winona Lake, Indiana, demonstrating her administrative skills at the MasterWorks Festival as a festival assistant and a publicity assistant.
As an advocate of performing arts and showcasing young artists to their community, Kim has worked with pianists of her community to promote their artistry at the local venues. She then established Glow Music, a non-profit organization, to serve the mission better. In 2022, Glow Music presented piano solo pieces by Korean composers and pianists of diverse nationalities to the city audience. In 2025, Glow Music is showcasing musicians of CCM and its recent alumni once again to the neighborhood audience, and the musicians are visiting MYCincinnati, the free music education program, to engage more deeply with the young community members.
Yeon-Kyung Kim, piano 