A L B E R T . K I M
p i a n o

American pianist Albert Kim made his public debut at the age of ten, when he substituted on a day’s notice for an ailing Vladimir Horowitz to give the inaugural performance on the 500,000th Steinway piano at Carnegie Hall. Since then he has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe, including solo and chamber music recitals at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Weill Recital Hall, Ravinia, Caramoor, Bargemusic, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, and the LaJolla Chamber Music Festival. He has appeared as soloist with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony, the Tenerife Symphony, the Greater Boston Youth Symphony, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, and the Mozart, Bach, and Brahms Society Orchestras at Harvard. During the 1998-99 concert season he was selected by Carnegie Hall to participate in the European Concert Hall Organization’s “Rising Stars” program, making solo and piano-duo debuts at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus, Cologne Philharmonie, Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Athens Megaron, the Palais des Beaux Arts, and Weill Recital Hall. From 1991 to 2000 he performed extensively in a trio with violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Edward Arron.

After some years’ hiatus, during which he pursued a career in aviation, Mr. Kim is currently a student of Natalya Antonova at the Eastman School of Music, where he is pursuing his M.M. in piano performance and literature. Winner of the 2008 concerto competition, he performed Prokofiev’s Concerto no. 2 with the Eastman Philharmonia in May. Albert received his B.A. cum laude in Music from Harvard University in 2000, where he conducted the Toscanini Chamber Orchestra and the Dunster House Opera’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

A dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Kim has performed in the chamber music master classes of Robert Levin and Menahem Pressler and coached with Isaac Stern, Yo-Yo Ma, Alexander Schneider, Leon Kirchner, Jean Barr, Lynn Chang, Daniel Stepner, and James Buswell. He was an Apprentice Artist at the Bravo! Colorado Music Festival in 1990 and 1991, and in 1996 he was selected as a keyboard fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he coached with Peter Serkin and William Bolcom and performed as an orchestral pianist under the batons of Robert Spano and Reinbert de Leeuw. He has collaborated in chamber festival performances with Pavel Vernikov, Asako Urushihara, Ida Kavafian, Ida Levin, Fred Sherry, Christopher Costanza, Ik-Hwan Bae, and David Chan. He has given world and European premieres of concerto and chamber works by Ellen Taafe Zwilich, Toshio Hosokawa, and Weezer lead vocalist Rivers Cuomo.

Mr. Kim is making his third appearance as piano soloist at Sanders Theatre. He was previously soloist in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto and Brahms’ Concerto no. 1 with the Brahms Society Orchestra, conducted by Eric Culver (2006) and Benjamin Rous (2002), respectively. His principal teachers have been Natalya Antonova, Janice Weber, John Perry, Solomon Mikowsky, Donn-Alexandre Feder, and Futaba Niekawa. He has also worked with Vitaly Margulis and German Diez. Mr. Kim retains his private pilot’s license and a dream to own his own airplane one day.

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