Innovative komungo virtuoso Jin Hi Kim is a Guggenheim Fellow composer, United States Artists Fellow, Asian Cultural Council Fellow, and American Composers Fellow. She has performed as a soloist in her own compositions at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and around the world. In 2021 GRAMMY.com wrote "A Musical Philosopher And Radiator Of Electricity: Jin Hi Kim." She creates new works with her dual identity between ancient Korean roots and contemporary American society. Kim began her musical life through studying the 4th century indigenous Korean komungo (geomungo). She is recognized as a pioneer for introducing her traditionally Korean instrument into the American contemporary music scene and is also known for her extensive solo performances on the world’s only electric komungo. These performances represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. Peter Waltrous of The New York Times said, “… promises thoughtful, shimmering East-West amalgams in combinations that are both new and unlikely to be repeated.”
