![A black-and-white headshot of a woman with long dark hair, black-rimmed glasses, and a textured headband. She faces away from the camera, to the right of the image, with a soft smile. A single light source hits the left side of her face, creating a sharp contrast with the dark background. In the bottom right corner of the image she holds a butterfly with her right hand.](https://usa-p-36588810407f.b-cdn.net/69a258cf-a64c-42ce-8ee6-efd80a91d57c/jin-hi-kim-3.jpg?crop=500%2C500%2C0%2C0&width=500)
Photo by A. Prathap.
Jin Hi Kim
She // Her // Hers
Composer and Electric Komungo Performer
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Jin Hi Kim, a composer and innovative komungo virtuoso, codesigned the world’s only electric komungo with custom computer programs. Kim’s work reflects the duality of her ancient Korean roots and contemporary American society, with interdisciplinary works merging Asian mythology and advanced Western technology. She is known as a pioneer for introducing komungo into the American contemporary music scene and for extensive solo performances on the electric komungo in large-scale multimedia performance pieces such as Ghost Komungobot, Digital Buddha, and Touching the Moons. In 2021, GRAMMY.com described her as “a musical philosopher and radiator of electricity.”
Over the past three decades, Kim has developed a series of “Living Tones” compositions that she has performed as a soloist with the Kronos Quartet, the American Composers Orchestra, and the Chamber music Society of Lincoln Center. Kim has performed her own compositions at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, the Asia Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and elsewhere around the world.
Donor -This award was generously supported by the Barr Foundation.
This artist page was last updated on: 09.01.2024