A young artist with a unique voice, violinist Eunice Kim has been proclaimed “just superb” by The New York Times. A born performer, this Astral Award-winning violinist is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area. Eunice Kim has appeared as soloist widely in the U.S. and abroad, including with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Boulder Philharmonic, Akron Symphony, New West Symphony, Pro Musica Columbus, Wheeling Symphony, Williamsburg Symphony and the Seongnam Philharmonic. With the Albany Symphony Orchestra she has performed and recorded George Tsontakis’s Unforgettable, released on Naxos Records. A superb musician with a quick mind and a maverick bow arm, this season’s engagements include her return to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, following successes with Beethoven’s Romance #1 and the Saint-Saëns Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso. As a guest artist for Curtis on Tour, she has performed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Germany with violist Roberto Díaz, and appeared at both the Library of Congress and the United Nations for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Xavier Foley, bass, and Eunice Kim, violin

In concerto repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven and Sibelius to Piazzolla and Jeremy Kittel, Eunice Kim has proven herself a gifted interpreter with a combination of exacting technique and thoughtful musicality. Recent engagements include the Beethoven Romance #1, Mozart’s Duo Concertante and Kittel’s “Pando” with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. A delightful and charismatic personality, Ms. Kim has also served as host and performer for the SPCO’s Club2030.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Kim has appeared at Music at Angel Fire, Music@Menlo, Ravinia’s Steans Institute of Music, Marlboro Music School and Festival, and as a guest artist at the Tippet Rise Art Center among other prominent festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Eunice enjoys has an ongoing performance collaboration with award-winning double bassist/composer Xavier Foley. The pair give deeply connected performances of works from Bach and Piazzolla to improvised sets and works by Foley himself. In 2021, the pair began performing his new double concerto ‘For Justice and Peace’ with orchestra, including appearances with the New West Symphony, Stamford Symphony (now Orchestra Lumos) and Pro Musica, about which the Columbus Dispatch wrote “Together, the two musicians become much more than a duet. They developed the fullness of an entire ensemble….”  Full Review. In 2023, Eunice Kim and Xavier Foley premiered his latest double concerto, ‘Resurrection of Titan’ at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Eunice Kim’s additional collaborations include performances with distinguished artists Miriam Fried, Nobuko Imai, Peter Wiley, Gary Hoffman, Ralph Kirshbaum, Peter Stumpf, Cynthia Raim, and eighth blackbird. Her creative work includes time with Ensemble39, a contemporary quintet of strings and winds devoted to commissioning new music and pushing the boundaries of the concert experience.

In addition to her Astral award, she has received prizes from the California International Violin Competition, the Pacific Music Society, and the Korea Times String competitions. Eunice Kim has degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she was awarded the Milka Violin Artist Prize.

Eunice Kim has partnered with Astral and The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Department of Education to perform in outreach series and has served as a teaching artist for Astral’s William Penn Residency at schools in the Philadelphia area. She has performed and taught at numerous international music festivals, most recently at the Teatro Del Lago Festival in Chile and the Valdres Music Academy in Norway.

Her musical talent was recognized early, and she began violin studies at the age of six with Wei He in the preparatory division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She made her solo debut at the age of seven with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in Seoul. A student of Ida Kavafian, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she was the recipient of the Rose Paul Fellowship. At Curtis, she served as concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and as a mentor in the Curtis Community Engagement program.