Bio: 

Nathaniel (known by his friends and peers as Nate) Kim, found his joy in music at the age of 12. Partially owed to the fact that his loving mother hadn’t “taken the violin back to Mr. Telford (and sons),” he never found an escape from music. In his early days, he found inspiration in people such as Itzhak Perlman, Maxim Vengerov, David Garrett, Anne Sophie Mutter, and The Piano Guys (of whom he later had the chance to perform with). He is most indebted to his first teacher, Jill Rowley, who worked with him up to high school.

Upon graduating from high school, he attended Boise State University. During this time, he was studying with locally famed professor and uncle-like figure, Craig Purdy. Nate found plenty of success during his time in Boise. In April of 2018, he gave a performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Boise State University Symphony Orchestra. He participated in several masterclasses which artists such as Glenn Dicterow, Monica Huggett, and the Borodin Quartet, to name a few. With the help of his MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) collegiate chapter, he was able to get his foot into the door of teaching. He played a role in the introduction of a community enrichment project that would provide scholarships for private lessons to students of low-income backgrounds. Many cups of coffee and lonely hours in the practice room later, Nate came out bruised and scarred but had in his hand a degree in hand Music Performance in May of 2020, the year of Zoom.

Nate has worked under the baton of conductors such as Keith Lockhart, Benjamin Zander, JoAnn Falletta, Angel Gil-Ordoñez, Christian Zacharias, Dominique Hoskin, and Robert Franz, to name a few favorites. He’s played works spanning up and down the list of orchestra repertoire from Mozart to Williams, Price, Ives, Revueltas, Adams, and Higdon. One of his bucket list items is to play all nine Beethoven symphonies and so far, he has worked on four out of the nine and counting.

He’s also seen plenty of action in the chamber music side of performing. Chamber music, as he describes, is “... so much more intimate, you feel your sound in other people’s parts and you weave in and out of it. There is a special collective energy at the center of every chamber group...” His group, Quartet 219 was awarded the first prize at the Boise Chamber Music Series Quartet Competition, a title that he and his group take with pride. Though he also enjoys impromptu chamber reading gatherings with some snacks and fine wine.

Currently, Nate is pursuing a Master’s degree in both Music Performance and Historical Performance at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA. He studies with Paula Majerfeld

(violin/viola) and Sarah Darling (baroque violin/baroque viola). He also takes lessons on conducting with Sean Wang and viol with Jane Hershey. Nate is also serving as a teaching assistant at Longy’s renowned El Sistema program, where he is committed to fighting social exclusion in the Greater Boston community and beyond by providing high-quality access to music education to students.

Nate is a member of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Ann Symphony Orchestra, Du Bois Orchestra, and Harvard Baroque Orchestra. You may find him performing at venues such as Boston Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall, He hopes to obtain his Doctoral of Music Arts and teach University Students while pursuing a fulfilling career as a performer. And while he won’t be in school for much longer, he believes that we are all lifelong students at heart as long as we have an open mind and stay curious.