Eunbi Kim

Pianist Eunbi Kim is known for innovative programs of contemporary music that include jazz and multimedia elements. She has recorded for the Albany and Bright Shiny Things labels. Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea. Her first name is pronounced OON-bee, with the "OON" sounding like "book." She grew up in Maryland, where she studied piano with Elena Arseniev. Kim earned a master of music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, graduating in 2012. She also held a fellowship at the school's Center for Music Entrepreneurship and was one of 50 artists chosen that year for the New York Foundation for the Arts Artist as Entrepreneur program. Kim has lectured widely on entrepreneurship in the arts. She and fellow Manhattan School of Music student Gina Izzo co-founded bespoken, a mentorship program aimed at female and nonbinary-identifying musicians, and some of her lecture material is drawn on her experiences in leading this project. Kim, in her own words, "curates programs that compel audiences to meditate on the parts of themselves that are deeply buried." They often have multimedia elements and entail collaborations with composers, filmmakers, and theater directors. Her programs have been presented at such prestigious venues as Washington's Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and the 92nd Street Y in New York, and the Asia Society Texas Center. One program, Murakami Music, combines piano pieces with spoken word readings exploring the pianists who appear in the writings of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. Kim also devised a program exploring the concert music of jazz pianist Fred Hersch; her 2017 recording debut, A House of Many Rooms, New Concert Music by Fred Hersch, was released on the Albany Records label. In 2022, Kim released It Feels Like on the Bright Shiny Things label; the album brought together works by various composers bearing on Kim's own life experiences.
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