Jinhyun Kim, originally from South Korea, is an active cellist based in Michigan. She currently serves as the Principal Cellist with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and Assistant Principal Cellist with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. She previously performed with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and is a substitute musician with the Detroit Symphony and Detroit Opera. Jinhyun is also a core member of "ConTempus Initiative," a new music ensemble based in mid-Michigan, with whom she has recorded an album through Blue Griffin Recording, set to be released in Fall 2024.
In addition to her performance career, Jinhyun is dedicated to teaching. She is an Adjunct Instructor of Cello at Albion College and Spring Arbor University and a cello faculty member at the Flint School of Performing Arts. She is also a registered Suzuki teacher through the Suzuki Association of the Americas and has served on various panels for both student and professional orchestra auditions and competitions.
Jinhyun began her cello studies at the age of eight. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Ewha Womans University in South Korea. She then completed both her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees at Michigan State University, where she was a graduate teaching assistant and received awards such as the Welton Family Endowed Fund, Dr. Stanley and Selma Hollander Endowed Scholarship in Cello, and the Music GOP Fellowship.
She has performed in several notable venues and events. Jinhyun made her debut at Kumho Art Hall in Seoul, Korea, in 2011. In 2013, she participated in a master class with cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Michigan State University and won the university's honors competition, which led to a concerto performance with the MSU Symphony Orchestra in 2014, broadcast multiple times on 90.5 WKAR.
She has also performed at Carnegie Hall in New York for the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition 2016 Winners Recital and returned in 2019 after winning first prize at the Golden Classical Music Awards.
Jinhyun has participated in festivals such as the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland, working with conductors like James Ross, Teddy Abrams, and Osmo Vänskä. Her recordings with the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic were released by Naxos Records.
Some of her significant collaborations include serving as Principal Cellist with Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings for a performance of Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light at the Detroit Institute of Arts in March 2018. She also played as a cello soloist for the Michigan Opera Theatre's fall 2020 production Twilight: Gods, which received outstanding reviews from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Opera News, and The New Yorker.