Jennifer Lim
Biography Jennifer Lim
Jennifer Lim
Having started to play the piano before the age of five, Korean-Canadian pianist Jennifer Lim made her first public appearance one year later and came into the spotlight when she captured the Grand Prize at the Korea Times National Music Competition at age eight. She studied privately with Jane Coop and Anton Kuerti in Canada, and with Peter Serkin at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was awarded the coveted Rachmaninoff/Festorazzi Prize. She then completed her master’s degree at The Juilliard School in New York City as a protégée of the legendary pianist Bella Davidovich.
In 2000 Jennifer Lim made her European recital debut at the Burghofspiele Eltville Festival, which was followed two months later by her New York debut at Weill Recital Hall and Carnegie Hall, both to critical acclaim. Praised by the Financial Times Deutschland for her “stupendous finger technique in break-neck passages, and, in the slow movement, deeply penetrating substance,” highlights as a concerto soloist have included Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with the Mississippi Symphony and engagements with the Columbus Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Regina Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, EuroAsian Philharmonic at the National Theater in Seoul, Roanoke Symphony, State Philharmonic Orchestra of Arad in Romania, Montreal’s McGill Chamber Orchestra, and Lima Symphony in its Season Opening Gala.
Over the years in Germany alone she has performed in Berlin, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Freiburg, and Wuppertal, with broadcasts on Deutschlandradio. In 2006 Through a Glass Darkly for solo piano was specially written for Jennifer Lim by Christos Hatzis and featured on a six-city Atlantic Debut Tour. An avid chamber musician, she has performed at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Wolf Trap in Virginia, and in France and Taiwan, is an artist member of America’s Dream Chamber Artists, and released a duo disc with Nokuthula Ngwenyama.
Jennifer Lim was the artistic director of the annual Vancouver Winter Chamber Music Festival from 2009 to 2013, working in partnership with CBC Radio. Notable artists she has performed with include Shmuel Ashkenasi, Sarah Chang, Jonathan Crow, Alexander Fiterstein, Hilary Hahn, Katherine Needleman, Peter Wiley, and the world-renowned Pražák Quartet, with whom she had the pleasure of appearing in one of Europe’s longest running concert series, Albert Konzerte in 2012. Lim was immediately invited back to give a solo recital in the series in 2014.
Her all-Chopin debut CD, recorded when she was twenty-four, received rave reviews from such distinguished publications as Fono Forum (five out of five stars), Audiophile, SCALA, and Piano News. This CD was the subject of a Chopin Special on the Bayerischer Rundfunk, praising Lim as “the only young artist who can play Chopin... with the greats such as Argerich, Pogorelich, Michelangeli, and Kapell.” She currently has eight commercially-released CDs to her credit, including a disc featuring the monumental Goldberg Variations. Jennifer Lim is the founder and executive director of Beautiful Today, supporting various charities as well as younger artists; proceeds from this album will also support them.
