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Introducing Artist VIP
Wonkak Kim - Renowned
Soloist and Chamber Music Artist - Professor at University of Oregon (Eugene)
email:
wkim@uoregon.edu
Biography
Korean-born clarinetist Wonkak Kim has captivated audiences around the
world with his “excellent breath control” (The Washington Post)
and “exuberant musicianship” (Fanfare). Kim appeared as a soloist
and chamber musician at major venues throughout the United States such as
Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Constitution Hall as
well as in Paris, London, Madrid, Ghent, Geneva, Seoul, Osaka, Costa Rica, and
Brazil. A Naxos Recording Artist, he has garnered international acclaim through
his extensive discography: Gulfstream,
a collection of new American chamber music, received many distinctions,
including“Music US Choice” (BBC
Music Magazine),
“Recording of the Month” (MusicWeb International), and American Record
Guide Critic’s Choice, and was praised for its “very highest quality” (Gramophone,
UK). The
International Clarinet Association Journal lauded Kim’s “sensitive playing,
a lovely sound and consummate facility” in François
Devienne: Clarinet Sonatas.
On his most recent Naxos release of Stephen Krehl’s
Clarinet Quintet,
American
Record Guide wrote:
“Kim renders the Clarinet Quintet with a clear and nicely rounded timbre…with
seamless blend and excellent legato.” Kim’s live and recorded performances have
been featured on Radio France, BBC Radio 3, Swedish Radio, Australian
Broadcasting Corporation, CJPX Radio Classique Québec,
Hong Kong RTHK-HK, Korean Broadcasting System, and NPR stations around the US.
Kim is Buffet Crampon, Silverstein, and Vandoren Performing Artist and plays
exclusively on Buffet Tosca Clarinet and Vandoren products.
An avid chamber musician, Kim has been invited to OK Mozart, Norfolk, Osaka, and
South Korea’s ISCM Pan Music festivals, working with members of the Chamber
Music Society of Lincoln Center, Tokyo, Artis, Brentano and Hayden string
quartets. Kim is a founding member of enhakē, the award-winning
clarinet-violin-cello-piano quartet in its 10th season and praised for its “rock
solid rhythmic integrity” as well as “strength in balance, intonation, and
musicality” (The New York Concert Review). With the group, Kim has toured
throughout the world, most notably at NYC’s
Weill Recital Hall, Osaka’s
Izumi Hall, Seoul Arts Center, International ClarinetFest, and the Promising
Artists of the 21st Century Series in Costa Rica under the auspices of the US
Department of State. His latest CD with enhakē entitled Prepárense:
The Piazzolla Project
on MSR has been described as “positively delightful…[t]he sense of ensemble is
near-miraculous” (Fanfare) and received high praises from Gramophone:
“The playing throughout is sublime…The intensity is real, the sounds gorgeous,
the rhythm infectious…this version strides proudly alongside the legendary
recording by Piazzolla himself.” Kim regularly collaborates with renowned
composers such as Eric Ewazen, Libby Larsen, Peter Lieuwen, Steve Reich, Peter
Schickele and Ellen Zwilich, commissioning, premiering or recording their new
works.
Kim’s notable engagements from recent past include a nationally
broadcasted performance of Mozart’s
Clarinet Concerto
on basset clarinet with Seungnam Philharmonic Orchestra in South Korea (the
first Korean clarinetist to do so), the world premiere performance of Steve
Landis’s Thronateeska Concerto with
enhakē
and Albany Symphony Orchestra, the world premiere performance of Peter
Lieuwen’s
Bright River for Clarinet and Piano in
Washington D.C. and London (European premiere), lectures and recitals at
International ClarinetFests (Baton Rouge, Madrid, and Orlando), ongoing
collaboration with Mirus Trio on Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet
for the End of Time, including a performance at the Seoul
Arts Center’s IBK Hall, and “Tokyo to New York” Series at Bargemusic NYC. He was
also featured in performances of Brahms Clarinet Trio and Quintet with Cleveland
Orchestra’s principal cellist Mark Kosower and the Grammy-winning Parker
Quartet, the resident quartet at Harvard University.
Kim joined
the music faculty at the University of Oregon School of Music as Assistant
Professor of Clarinet in 2017. Prior to his appointment at UO, Kim served as
Associate Professor of Clarinet at Tennessee Tech University (2012-2017), where
he received numerous faculty awards. He is regularly invited as a guest artist
and teacher at world’s renowned institutions, including the Juilliard School,
Manhattan School of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Harvard College,
and many universities and conservatories throughout the US, Latin America,
Europe, and Asia. Kim’s students have excelled in state and national
competitions and received prestigious scholarships to many universities and
summer festivals. Kim is a College Music Society Ambassador to Korea and
regularly invited as a guest professor in Korean universities and
conservatories.
A native of South
Korea, Dr. Wonkak Kim grew up in Seoul and Paris and moved to the United States
at the age of 15. The same year, he began studying clarinet with Kenneth Lee, a
disciple of the legendary pedagogue Leon Russianoff. Kim subsequently attended
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a distinguished scholarship,
where he studied clarinet with Donald Oehler and received degrees in Mathematics
(BA) and Music (BM). He continued his graduate studies with Dr. Frank Kowalsky,
earning MM and DM degrees at Florida State University. In 2014, Kim was inducted
into FSU’s Thirty Under 30 and became the College of Music’s sole recipient of
Governor Reubin O’D. Askew Young Alumni Award, “the highest honor bestowed upon
its young alumni” (FSU Alumni Association).
To learn more about Wonkak Kim, please visit his website:
www.wonkak.com.
Last Updated – 19 March, 2018
Agendas and Performance and
Teaching Philosophy
Message from Wonkak Kim
Recordings
hyperlinked here
Activities Past and Future
New
Information Under
development
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Revised: January 10, 2019