Born and raised in New Jersey, Mary Kim began playing violin at the age of 7 and teaching at the age of 14. Her accomplished career as violinist and educator has been rich and diverse. Since her orchestral debut at the age of twelve with The Philadelphia Orchestra, she has performed nationally (California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, DC, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) and internationally (Victoria, BC, Canada and South Korea).
Mary has performed in orchestras under the baton of world-renowned conductors and with the world’s top artists. For seven years, she and her two sisters, Ann (cello) and Hei-ock (piano), formed The Kim Sisters Trio. Since then, her chamber music activity has led her to collaborations with Sadao Harada (co-founder, Tokyo String Quartet), Fred Lifsitz (Alexander String Quartet) and Winfried Rademacher (concertmaster, Zurich Chamber Orchestra) and to perform in master classes with Guarneri String Quartet and Emerson Quartet. Her performances have been featured on KCSN and KMZT radio stations as well in commercial projects, such as CBS’s “Touched by an Angel” and the National Geographic theme music. An avid proponent of new music, Mary has premiered the works of several composers, including William Toutant, Liviu Marinescu, Peter Knell and Dan Hosken.
For more than twenty-five years, Mary has maintained a private violin studio and also taught on the faculties of six institutions, including California State University, Northridge where she was Assistant Professor of Music. As a string consultant, she has engaged with children and young adults in music workshops, served on audition panels and coached youth orchestras in the metropolitan regions of Washington, DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Mary received her early musical training at The Juilliard School, Pre-College Division in New York City for 8 years where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki. She went on to receive her undergraduate degree in Architecture from Princeton University, her masters in violin from Yale University and her Doctor of Musical Arts in violin from University of California, Santa Barbara. She also attended the Aspen Music Festival and School for two years and Johannesen International School for the Arts.
Prior to moving to the Bay Area in 2011, Mary played with the National Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She currently works at The Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford in community-engaged learning, performs with San Francisco Symphony as a substitute violinist, and loves to ride her bike in scenic areas, bake gluten-free, and be in nature. She lives in Palo Alto with an engineer, two high schoolers, and their three cats!
Mary Kim, Violinist 