2020 SVF Faculty
Nam Yun Kim
Nam Yun Kim started to play violin at the age of 6 and shortly became recognized as a child prodigy. By the age of nine she has won the Ewha & KyungHyang Concours. After graduating from the Seoul Arts High School, she continued her study at Juilliard School of Music with Ivan Galamian and Felix Galimir.
Her career took off after being awarded first prize in the 1974 Tibor Varga International Competition in Switzerland, which did not have the first prize for a long time. She was invited to perform at many internationally renowned venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Kennedy Center and Sydney Opera House and other major concert halls in Europe and Asia. She also performed with major orchestras throughout the world including St. Petersburg Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Zagreb Radio Symphony and many others worldwide.
Despite her busy concert and touring schedules, Nam Yun Kim has dedicated much of her time to teaching. She returned to Korea and became the youngest violin professor in Korea in 1977. Many of her students are prizewinners of prestigious competitions, like the 2008 Long-Thibaud International Violin Competition, 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and recently the 2012 Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, etc.
She is currently the professor of violin at the Korea National University of Arts and since 2011, she is invited to the Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University as a visiting scholar. Besides teaching, she has also served on the juries of numerous prestigious competitions including the Taipei International Competition, Tibor Varga Competition, Hannover International Violin Competition, Queen Elisabeth Competition and Tchaikovsky Competition.