Jin Kim is serving his 25th season as Music Director and Conductor of the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.
Under Kim’s leadership, Atlantic Symphony Orchestra has become a professional orchestra of note and one of the premier regional orchestras in New England, recognized for artistic excellence. During his tenure, ASO continues to develop as an organization while garnering enthusiastic support from Boston’s Metro South and South Shore communities, and beyond.
Music critics from leading newspapers, including The Boston Globe and The Patriot Ledger, consistently praise the orchestra’s performances — noted as “spectacular, dramatic, expressive, confident and unified.”
Audiences give Kim high marks and routinely name him as a personal favorite — a personable, dynamic and extremely talented conductor who educates, entertains, and brings warmth and welcome to every concert, without apology for the “high art” of ASO performances.
Kim has appeared with orchestras in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia including the National Arts Center (Ottawa), Plzen Philharmonic (Czech) and Korean Symphony orchestras. Since 2001 he has also been a regular guest conductor of the Bucheon Philharmonic, one of the leading professional orchestras in Korea.
In addition to his work with Maestro Leonard Slatkin and National Symphony Orchestra at the National Conducting Institute in Washington D.C., at the invitation of Maestro David Zinman, Kim also served as a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival.
Kim is a recipient of the prestigious Robert Shaw Conducting Fellowship, an annual career development award presented to one North American conductor, underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Equally accomplished in the choral-orchestral genre, Kim is a founding Music Director of Magnum Chorum and received first prize at the 1995 American Choral Directors Association’s National Conducting Competition.
As a pianist, Kim was a finalist at the Minnesota Orchestra Concerto Competition and he continues to be an active chamber musician. Also an accomplished professional singer, he was a member of the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, Minnesota Opera Chorus and The Dale Warland Singers – one of the most distinguished professional choruses in the United States.
As a teacher, Kim served as Music Director of Empire State Youth Orchestras, New York. Also, as a frequent guest conductor, he has lead orchestras through rehearsals and concerts at College of Fine Arts, Boston University and Boston Conservatory. In addition, Kim has also taught instrumental conducting at Boston University and served as the visiting conductor of Boston University Chamber Orchestra.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Kim immigrated to the United States at age eleven. He is a graduate of St. Olaf College where he studied piano with A. Dewayne Wee and choral conducting with Kenneth Jennings. At the Eastman School of Music he continued his piano studies with Rebecca Penneys and orchestral conducting with David Effron.
Two years prior to taking the helm of the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, he moved to Boston to become one of only two orchestra conductors ever admitted into the prestigious Artist Diploma program at Boston University.
His additional training includes extensive work with renowned Finnish conducting pedagogue Jorma Panula and appearance in master classes with noted conductors including Otto-Werner Mueller, David Hoose, Murry Sidlin, Hugh Wolff and Pinchas Zukerman.
Jin Kim and his family live on Boston’s South Shore.