Pianist Yeon-Kyung Kim is from South Korea and enjoys diverse branches she can explore with her classical piano training. Currently, she is pursuing her final degree in piano performance at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) under the guidance of Michael Chertock.
Her former teachers include James Tocco at CCM, Emile Naoumoff at Indiana University, who was the last student of Nadia Boulanger, Christopher Harding at the University of Michigan, and Aviram Reichert at Seoul National University. She has been a scholarship recipient throughout her music education.
Ms. Kim regularly performs as a solo pianist and a chamber musician. She performed at multiple venues at CCM, in Northern and Southern Indiana, Detroit Metropolitan area including Ann Arbor, and in Seoul, South Korea. During her study in Michigan, she 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. Ms. 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 where she brought new musicians of the conservatory and presented to the city audience to break the barrier.
As an avid chamber musician, Ms. Kim finds true joy in intertwining the music and idea of different people on the same page. Also as a true collaborator who listens and reacts, she has performed extensively both with instrumentalists and vocalists. She 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 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. Recently, she has performed at Louisiana State University for the Collaborative Piano Institute.
She 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. Currently, she is maintaining a private teaching studio of young musicians.
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 about 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, Yeon-Kyung has worked with pianists of her community to promote their artistry at the local venues. In 2019, she initiated a concert series, Concert Number One to connect her colleagues and the Cincinnati audience by having them play outside the conservatory. In 2022, Yeon-Kyung will present the piano solo pieces by Korean composers of CCM to the city audience.
Yeon-Kyung Kim, piano 