Siwoo Kim

Siwoo Kim is an “incisive” and “compelling” (Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times) violinist who performs as soloist and chamber musician. Mr. Kim is also the founding co-artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Siwoo made his New York concerto debut at Carnegie Hall - Stern Auditorium with James DePreist and the Juilliard Orchestra. He made his Walt Disney Concert Hall concerto debut shortly after. In addition, he has given concerto performances with the Columbus, Houston, Seongnam, Springfield (MO), and Tulsa symphony orchestras, among others. Siwoo gave the world premiere performance of Samuel Adler's first violin concerto and will be recording the work in Berlin in the 2017 - 2018 season. The same season, Siwoo will be going on tour in South Africa, making his debut with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra.

An enthusiastic collaborator, Mr. Kim founded Quartet Senza Misura. Praised for their “whip-smart performances” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), the string quartet has performed at an array of venues such as Alice Tully Hall of Lincoln Center, Terrace Theater of The Kennedy Center, Seoul Arts Center, La Fundacion Juan March, and the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music. In the past several seasons, Siwoo has been a violinist of Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect (formerly known as Ensemble ACJW) and Marlboro Music Festival. He is a returning guest artist of Ensemble DITTO in South Korea and has also been featured in the Tivoli Festival in Denmark and the Bergen International Festival in Norway. He has performed chamber music with Itzhak Perlman, Joyce DiDonato, Jeremy Denk, Kim Kashkashian, Stefan Jackiw, Richard O'Neill, Bridget Kibbey, Anna Polonsky, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard and Takacs String Quartets.

Siwoo was named the recipient of the 2012 King Award for Young Artists. He took second place at the 2010 Corpus Christi International Competition for Piano and Strings, where he was also awarded special prizes for the best performance of solo Bach and violin performance. He has also been named top prizewinner in the California, Chengdu, Crescendo, Hellam, Ima Hogg, Juilliard, Schadt, Sejong, and WAMSO competitions.

Siwoo studied with Roland and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago. He went on to receive both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School. As the recipient of the Elsie and Walter W. Naumburg Scholarship, he led the Juilliard Orchestra as concertmaster and studied with Robert Mann, Donald Weilerstein, and Ronald Copes.