Soovin Kim - About

When I was given a BBT Award, I could feel that I was about to begin a journey with a special organisation. BBT’s team provides us with the financial, artistic and moral support that every striving young artist needs. It is an award that is particularly rewarding because it feels like a reconfirmation – as if I am being reassured by this most distinguished of panels that appreciates what I am working for as I grow into my life as an adult artist.

American violinist Soovin Kim is a highly accomplished player who has built on the early successes of his prize-winning years to emerge as a mature artist, equally gifted in concerto, recital, and chamber music repertoire, as well as teaching and programming. Soovin is a founder and artistic director of two renowned music festivals in Vermont and Oregon and also devotes much of his time to his passion for teaching at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Yale School of Music in New Haven.

Soovin’s BBT Award supported two recordings on the Azica label: the first, Niccolò Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices was a perfect showcase for his dazzling virtuosity and was his debut solo album. Released in 2006, it zoomed into Billboard’s Classical Chart, and was named Classic FM magazine’s Instrumental Disc of the Month. This was followed by an album of Chausson and Fauré with pianist Jeremy Denk and the Jupiter String Quartet. Other invaluable assets for a young artist also funded by BBT included American PR, production of a CD-Rom press kit, new photographs and a website. Soovin also participated in BBT showcase tours in 2006, led by Christian Tetzlaff (Aldeburgh, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Vienna) and in 2008, led by Mitsuko Uchida to the US (Kalamazoo, Philadelphia and New York) and Europe (Perugia, Amsterdam and London).

Soovin was supported with a BBT Award between 2005 and 2008.

Read Soovin’s blogs: A BBT goodbye here; BBT Tour, Day 5 here; BBT Tour, Day 3 here; and BBT Tour, Day 1 here

For a current biography please visit music.yale.edu

Photographs by New England Conservatory and Woo-Ryong Chai