3RD LAUREATE

3RD LAUREATE

Stephen Kim of USA: 3rd Laureate in the 2010 Competition.

Violinist Stephen Kim’s (3rd Laureate in the 2nd Stradivarius International Violin Competition) solo performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor at San Francisco’s prestigious Davies Symphony Hall drew praise from the critics. The San Francisco Classical Voice exclaimed that Stephen’s phenomenal performance “left many of the audience in Davies Symphony Hall in a roaring state of astonishment. Stephen’s maturity of phrasing, not unlike Yehudi Menuhin’s, was the very soul of Romantic tastefulness.”

Born in October 1995, Stephen has appeared as a soloist with the Stockton Symphony Orchestra, Prometheus Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and Monta Vista Chamber Orchestra. Stephen will also perform Shostakovich’sViolin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor withthe Bear Valley Symphony Orchestra at the invitation of Carter Nice and the Bear Valley Music Festival in August 2010. Following this debut, he will perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major with the Fremont Symphony Orchestra and perform with the California Youth Symphony as the winner of the Young Artist Competition.

Featured as a soloist on From the Top, the NPR classical music program, Stephen has broadcasted with the National Public Radio throughout the country. Stephen has been selected as one of the nine Exceptional Young Violinists selected world-wide to take part in the 2009 Starling-Delay Symposium on Violin Studies for master teachers Itzhak Perlman, Paul Kantor, Joel Smirnoff, David Kim and Chee-Yun at theJuilliard School, where Stephen performed in public master classes and recitals. Stephen was invited as the guest soloist to perform classical musicbefore a special advanced screening of Paramount Pictures’ film, The Soloist. Stephen has also been selected as a young artist to perform as a Rising Star ofCalifornia.

Stephen was recently awarded the Gold Medal in the 11^th California International Young Artists Violin Competition in San Diego. He has also received numerous first prizes in the Alexander and Buono International String Competition, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition, California Youth Symphony Young Artist Competition, Mondavi Center Young Artists Competition, Felix Khuner Concerto Competition, Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra Concerto Competition, and the San Francisco ASTA (American String Teachers Association) Competition. As a winner of the California State Final ASTA Competition, he representedCalifornia,and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, in the 2009 National AmericanString Teachers Association Competition. Also performing chamber music, Stephen and hisduet have been awarded first prize in the Northern California Branch of the MTAC (Music Teachers’ Association of California) VOCE Competition.

As a recitalist, Stephen made his Carnegie Hall debut in2009 and has been presented by many venues throughout the United States andEurope, including the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Fremont Symphony Guild, St. Paul’s Towers, the Julia Morgan Theater, the San Mateo Performing Arts Theater, the Saenger Theatre in Alabama, Paul Hall in New York, Harris Concert Hall in the Aspen Music Festival and School, and Valle d'Aosta in Italy.

Stephen has attended the Aspen Music Festival and School as a scholarship student of Paul Kantor since the summer of 2009, where he performed in numerous recitals andreceived master classes from Pamela Frank and Joseph Swensen.

Since the age of 11, he has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, and he has toured Germany and theCzech Republic as the youngest member. Stephen is co-concertmaster of the Chamber OrchestrainMonta Vista High School inCupertino, California.

Stephen began playing the violin at the age of three and has studied with Bettina Mussumeli in the Pre-College Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music since he was eight.