2012 - 2013 | Quentin Kim, Composer

About the Artist

Known for his aestheticism and emotional sincerity, composer Quentin Kim has been creating a vivid world of fantasy, drama and intimacy through his “tireless pursuit of excellence and fascination with beauty” and conviction in the perpetual modernity of tonality. His music, heard at such venues worldwide as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, New York Society for Ethical Culture, Salle Cortot in Paris, Cajastur Cultural Center in Gijón, Spain, as well as at the Concerts at the Crossroads series in Cleveland, has been praised and favored by the public and professional musicians alike for its “refreshingly direct” (New York Concert Review) quality, and the American Record Guide called his compositions “worthy of repeated hearings.” Particularly acclaimed were the recent performances of his Variations on an Ancient Korean Melody given by pianist Hai-Kyung Suh on Jeju Island, Korea, and of his Springtime Glances by pianist Dong Hyek Lim throughout Korea during the Tenth Anniversary Tour of Lim’s debut. Quentin received an Honorable Mention for his At the Deathbed for two violins, viola and violoncello from the 2009 Washington International Competition for Composers.

Equally active as a pianist of “excellent imagination,” “stunning conception of sound . . . . sensuous . . . as a controlled substance,” and hailed as a “memorable and inspiring . . . . thoughtful musician” through whom music sounds “completely new, modern in the best sense of the word, as if freshly created . . . . as if he himself had composed the work” (New York Concert Review), Quentin tours extensively in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He is a Grand Prize winner of the Grace Welsh International Prize for Piano, as well as a First Prize winner of the Joong Ang Music Concours of Korea, and has of late toured in Central and South America with members of International Sejong Soloists as a cultural ambassador of Korea.

Quentin’s principal teachers have included Philip Lasser (composition), Claude Frank, Yoheved Kaplinsky, and Jerome Lowenthal (piano). He was graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, with a master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and was awarded an Artist Diploma from Yale University. In 2010, The Juilliard School named him a Doctor of Musical Arts (in Piano Performance).

Quentin’s music is published by the New York Classical Press (ASCAP) and can be heard on Blue Griffin Recording.