| Roman Kim | |
| Birth Date: | 11 October 1991 |
| Birth Place: | Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union |
| Alma Mater: | Cologne University of Music |
| Occupation: | Violinist, composer |
| Years Active: | 2000 - present |
Roman Kim (born 11 October 1991) is a Kazakhstani violin virtuoso, composer and inventor.
Roman Kim was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic two months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union to a family with Tatar, Belarusian and Korean origins. At the age of five he received his first violin and at the age of seven he won first prizes in national competitions. Kim studied at the Central Music School in Moscow from 2000-2008 with Galina Turchaninova and was a scholarship student of the Mstislav Rostropovich Foundation, winning the first International Russian Rotary Children’s Music Competition in 2002. He subsequently attended master classes with Maxim Vengerov, Midori Goto, Lewis Kaplan, Miriam Fried and Gidon Kremer.[1] [2]
In 2008, at the age of 16, Kim was admitted to the Cologne University of Music, where he studied with Viktor Tretyakov. In 2012 he won the first prize of the 28th Valsesia Musica in Italy. As a winner of the Cologne International Music Competition (2011), Kim played with the WDR Radio Orchestra of Cologne. Kim plays a violin by Giuseppe Guarneri (Cremona, 1695), owned by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben Foundation.[3] “My most important teachers were Moscow State Conservatory instructor Galina Turchaninova and Viktor Tretyakov,” Kim says. “Turchaninova gave me a wonderful technical basis, and Tretyakov affected me very strongly musically.”[4] Kim specializes in violin concertos of the Romantic period and virtuoso works for the violin. Kim has studied the bow and finger techniques of the legendary violinist Paganini in depth, and like Paganini, has created new arrangements for various musical works.
Kim has also stated that Jimi Hendrix is another source of inspiration for him. Kim’s version of Bach's "Air on a G String" brought him international recognition in 2011 and has been viewed over 1.3 million times on YouTube.[5] [6]
Israeli virtuoso Ivry Gitlis described Kim's mastery of his instrument as "one of the most incredible playing I have heard since I was born!“ In 2016 he won the Ivry Gitlis prize at the Festival Le Printemps du Violon in Paris.
In his violin solo videos, he plays up to four strings at the same time, often 'mimicking' the sounds of kettle drums, woodwinds and horns.[7] In his respective YouTube videos, namely
As a composer, Kim has created various transcriptions as well as works for violin and piano, and a violin concerto premiered in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in 2017.
Transcriptions and compositions for solo violin
For violin and piano
Kim is known for wearing prismatic glasses that he invented in 2014, believed (by himself) to improve focus and concentration.