DAVID KIM

Concertmaster of The Philadelphia Orchestra since 1999, David Kim was born in Carbondale, Illinois. He started playing the violin at the age of three, began studies with the famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay at the age of eight, and later received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. In 1986 he was the only American violinist to win a prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Mr. Kim is founder and artistic director of the Kingston Chamber Music Festival at the University of Rhode Island (founded in 1989). He also holds the position of special guest artist there and in 2001 was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts. Mr. Kim devotes a portion of his schedule each year to bringing classical music to children. In conjunction with the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, he founded an annual outreach program that takes him to elementary schools, performing and speaking about classical music in an effort to cultivate future audiences. To date, Mr. Kim has performed for well over 12,000 young people in the State of Rhode Island. He also visits hundreds of children in the Philadelphia area each season.

Mr. Kim’s numerous solo engagements around the world have included the orchestras of Dallas, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Capetown, KBS (Korea), and Moscow; as well as the Buffalo, Rhode Island, and Seoul philharmonics; the Polish National Radio Orchestra; the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra; and numerous orchestras across North, Central, and South America. Mr. Kim appears as soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra every season. Most recently, he was a featured soloist on The Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2005 tour of Asia, performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto at the Seoul Arts Center in Korea. Some of the conductors with whom he has performed as soloist include Christoph von Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Peter Oundjian, and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

At age 12, Mr. Kim appeared with Itzhak Perlman as the subject of “Prodigy,” a WNEW-TV ( New York) production, and has since been featured nationally in specials on the CBS, NBC, and PBS networks. He has also been featured prominently on National Public Radio and in Newsweek magazine. He performs on a J.B. Guadagnini from Milan, Italy, ca. 1757, on permanent loan from The Philadelphia Orchestra. David Kim resides in a suburb of Philadelphia with his wife, Jane, and daughters Natalie and Margaret.