Yerin Kim

Praised by the International Piano Magazine as “pianist of beautiful finesse and golden tone”, pianist Yerin Kim is a recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. She has given concerts in various festivals and recitals in major venues internationally, including The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Carnegie Hall in New York, Place Flagey in Brussels and Rolston Hall at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada.

Her solo debut album “First and Last Words”, works by Robert Schumann and Alfred Schnittke, was released by the Sheva Collection Label in Spring 2019. Phoenix Classical, one of the foremost promoters of Classical recordings across the world, remarked on the album as “powerful and engaging, very poetic and expressive with some truly original interpretive insights, all performed with a great technique”. The album has garnered critical acclaim from major classical music magazines, including the International Piano Magazine, Fanfare Magazine, and The Wholenote Magazine. Partnering with violinist Brendan Shea as the Shea-Kim Duo, they perform a wide range of music for a broad audience across the world and have gained critical acclaim from major magazines and critiques; “the duo of Shea and Kim work exquisitely as a team, overlapping their lines so seamlessly they become inseparable” (Strings Magazine), “the duo creates a rich and intimate atmosphere, as they navigate the thrills and spill” (BBC Music Magazine), and “this duo is very reluctant to hold back, they frankly play the bejeezus out of it” (American Record Guide). Their debut performance in Seoul, South Korea was recorded live and published by Ark Studio, and since then have released “The Sound and the Fury” (2022) and “All Roads” (2023) under Blue Griffin label. Their latest album “Touch” will be released in winter of 2024.

As a regular lecturer, Kim performs and gives talks on promoting awareness of the power of music in the community that it serves, especially in the field of music and medicine. She has been invited to give lectures for prominent educators and students at Indiana University, Bloomington, the Nantucket Project, Music Teachers National Association, the Universal Arts Institute in Seoul, South Korea, among others. She founded a Sensory Friendly Music and Autism Concert Series that has served autistic individuals and communities in New York, Indiana, and Washington state. She also founded and Co-directs Chamber Music in the Bend with her husband and violinist Brendan Shea. Her passion for pre-college educational and community engagements lead to founding the CWU Summer Literacy for Youth in Music, a music camp designed for children of migrant families of Washington state and local children to be taught by CWU collegiate music educators trained under the guidance of CWU faculty.

She also founded and directs CWU PianoFest, a piano festival and competition where some of the most talented pre-college and college students of the West Coast are invited to CWU campus to perform. Kim currently teaches at Central Washington University as the Director of Keyboard Studies. Prior to joining Central Washington University, she taught at the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University, Bloomington. She also enjoys pre-college teaching and has taught talented young students from pre-college programs at Indiana University, Bloomington and State University of New York Stony Brook. Kim holds a Double Degree in Piano Performance and Psychology from Oberlin conservatory and college, a Master of Music from Indiana University Bloomington, and Doctor of Musical Arts from State University of New York, Stony Brook. Her mentors and teachers include Hans Boepple, Seunghae Choi, Haewon Song, Arnaldo Cohen, Jean-Louis Haguenauer, and Gilbert Kalish.