Soovin Kim

Soovin Kim (born 1976) is a Korean American violinist.

Early life

Kim was born in Iowa City, Iowa on April 10, 1976 to South Korean parents who had met and married in Korea, then moved to the U.S. together. When Kim was 2, his family moved to Chicago. Two years later his brother Marvin was born. Though no member of Kim's family was involved in music (his mother is a registered dietician, while his father is a communications professor), as a young boy he enjoyed listening to classical violin recordings at home with his mother. Soon, Kim asked for violin lessons, as had his friend Jennifer Koh and a number of his other friends around the same time. His parents enrolled him in a local Suzuki class, where he thrived under the tutelage of Suzuki instructor William Fuhrburg.

In 1985, his family moved to Plattsburgh, New York. He attended public schools while studying the violin privately, traveling to Montreal weekly to work with the concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony, Richard Roberts. At ages 13 and 14 Kim himself served as concertmaster of the World Youth Orchestra at Michigan's National Music Camp at Interlochen. Both summers Itzhak Perlman was soloist with the Orchestra.