Biography
Pianist Eunbi Kim has built a reputation through inventive recitals that fuse contemporary works with jazz influences and multimedia components. Her recordings appear on the Albany and Bright Shiny Things labels.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, she pronounces her given name OON-bee, the first syllable echoing the vowel in “book.” Raised in Maryland, she trained under Elena Arseniev. In 2012 she completed a master of music degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where she also held a fellowship at the Center for Music Entrepreneurship and was selected as one of fifty participants in that year’s New York Foundation for the Arts Artist as Entrepreneur program. She has spoken extensively on arts entrepreneurship; with fellow Manhattan School of Music alumnus Gina Izzo she established bespoken, a mentorship initiative supporting female and nonbinary-identifying musicians, and she frequently draws lecture content from her leadership of the project.
Kim has stated that she “curates programs that compel audiences to meditate on the parts of themselves that are deeply buried.” These presentations regularly incorporate multimedia elements and involve partnerships with composers, filmmakers, and theater directors. Performances have taken place at Washington’s Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y in New York, and the Asia Society Texas Center. One such project, Murakami Music, interleaves piano repertoire with spoken-word excerpts that examine the pianists featured in Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s fiction. Another explores the concert-hall compositions of jazz pianist Fred Hersch; Kim’s first commercial recording, the 2017 Albany Records release A House of Many Rooms, New Concert Music by Fred Hersch, documents that exploration. In 2022 she issued It Feels Like on Bright Shiny Things, an album uniting pieces by several composers that reflect episodes from her own life.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, she pronounces her given name OON-bee, the first syllable echoing the vowel in “book.” Raised in Maryland, she trained under Elena Arseniev. In 2012 she completed a master of music degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where she also held a fellowship at the Center for Music Entrepreneurship and was selected as one of fifty participants in that year’s New York Foundation for the Arts Artist as Entrepreneur program. She has spoken extensively on arts entrepreneurship; with fellow Manhattan School of Music alumnus Gina Izzo she established bespoken, a mentorship initiative supporting female and nonbinary-identifying musicians, and she frequently draws lecture content from her leadership of the project.
Kim has stated that she “curates programs that compel audiences to meditate on the parts of themselves that are deeply buried.” These presentations regularly incorporate multimedia elements and involve partnerships with composers, filmmakers, and theater directors. Performances have taken place at Washington’s Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y in New York, and the Asia Society Texas Center. One such project, Murakami Music, interleaves piano repertoire with spoken-word excerpts that examine the pianists featured in Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s fiction. Another explores the concert-hall compositions of jazz pianist Fred Hersch; Kim’s first commercial recording, the 2017 Albany Records release A House of Many Rooms, New Concert Music by Fred Hersch, documents that exploration. In 2022 she issued It Feels Like on Bright Shiny Things, an album uniting pieces by several composers that reflect episodes from her own life.
Albums
Singles
