Cellist Gaeun Kim Performing at the 2022 Klein International String Competition

Watch this prize winning performance, ahead of the competition's 2023 edition to be held from June 3-4

The Irving M. Klein International String Competition, produced by the California Music Center, is open to musicians between the ages of 15 and 23. At the 2022 Klein International String Competition, the first prize was given to Korean cellist Gaeun Kim.

Kim received $13,000 and performance contracts with the Peninsula and Santa Cruz Symphonies, Gualala Arts Chamber Music Series, and Music in the Vineyards. She was also awarded the Pablo Casals Prize for the best performance of Bach.

Below, she performs excerpts from Shostakovich's Sonata in D minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 40 and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme Op. 33.

A student at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Richard Aaron and Gautier Capucon, Gauen Kim’s winning program included movements from the Shostakovich Sonata in D minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 40 and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33.

Previously, Kim has won first prize at the 2012 Antonio Janigro Competition, Liezen International Competition, and David Popper International Cello Competition. She was selected as a “Samsung Rising Star” and one of “30 rising stars in Culture & Arts Industry on Republic of Korea.” Gaeun was the youngest participant in the 2018 Isang-Yun International Competition and the 2019 XVI Tchaikovsky International Competition.

Celebrating 38 years of championing the world’s finest young string players, the 2023Klein International String Competition will be held at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from June 3-4, 2023.

As the competition's official partner, audiences worldwide will be able to watch the competition LIVE on The Violin Channel.

The semi-finalists were recently announced and will be judged by the jury — including violinist Glenn Dicterow, violist Karen Dreyfus, cellist and 2014 Klein first prizewinner Zlatomir Fung, this year’s commissioned composer Gity Razaz, bassist Harold Robinson, and conductors Daniel Stewart and Barbara Day Turner.