Heather Kim
Custom Silver, Offset G, B Footjoint, C# Trill Key
PURCHASED AT FLUTACIOUS
Heather Kim is a seventeen year old flutist who was born in South Korea, began her musical training in Tampere, Finland, started playing the flute in Buffalo, New York, and currently lives in Orange County, California.
Heather represents the Haynes Flute Company as a Haynes Young Artist. An accomplished soloist, she has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation as a National YoungArts Winner in both 2022 and 2023. She was the winner of the 2023 Young Stars of the Future Competition, receiving the opportunity to perform as a soloist with the South Coast Symphony in January of 2023. She is currently the principal flutist of the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra (PSYO) — the premier training orchestra of Orange County — and a five-year member of the Pacific Symphony Youth Ensembles (PSYE). This past season, she won the PSYO Concerto Competition, and performed the Nielsen Flute Concerto with PSYO in May of 2023.
Heather is a student at the Orange County School of the Arts, and was awarded the principal flutist position in its two top ensembles — the Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble — as a sophomore in high school. She was the winner of the Orange County School of the Arts’ 2022 Concerto Competition, and performed the Mozart Concerto in D Major as a soloist alongside the Symphony Orchestra. She was a finalist for the Orange County Register’s 2023 Artist of the Year Competition, and the winner of the Winds and Percussion category. Additionally, she received an honorable mention from the Mount Saint Mary’s 2022 Music Competition, recognition from the Music Center’s Spotlight Competition in 2022 and 2023, and first prize in the 2022 Charleston International Winter Competition.
Heather currently studies with Benjamin Smolen, Principal Flutist of the Pacific Symphony. Her previous teachers include Cynthia Ellis of the Pacific Symphony and Natalie Debikey Scanio of the Buffalo Philharmonic. She studied with Matthew Roitstein of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra while serving as the principal flutist of the Interlochen Arts Camp’s Interlochen Philharmonic Orchestra during the summer of 2021, and with Professor Amy Porter at the Brevard Music Center, while serving as the principal flutist of the Brevard Concert Orchestra and Symphonic Wind Ensemble during the summer of 2022. In addition to these music festivals, she was also accepted into the Boston University Tanglewood Institute in the summers of 2022 and 2023.
In past seasons, Heather has held positions with the California All State Music Conference High School Orchestra (CASMEC Symphony Orchestra), the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association ensembles (SCSBOA), the New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) ensembles, the Irvine Honor Orchestra, and the Erie County Music Educators Association (ECMEA) ensembles.
Before beginning the flute, Heather was a pianist, and made her concerto solo debut with the Tampereen Konservatorio’s orchestra at the age of nine. At eleven, she was selected through a conservatory wide competition to represent Finland at Kaunas Sonorum — an international classical music competition in Kaunas, Lithuania — where she was awarded third prize overall.
Outside of school, she enjoys using her passion for music to serve her community through various programs and organizations. She is the co-founder and president of Sol Soul Seoul, a performance-based nonprofit organization helping bring attention to North Korean refugees, as well as a performer for Smile Train, an organization that holds benefit concerts to raise funds for children in need of cleft lip and palate surgeries. She also volunteers with the Dragon Kim Foundation, Back to Bach, the Do Re Mi Project, Healing Harmonies, and Quarantunes, and is president of her school’s chapter of the Tri-M Honor Society. Recently, she has also begun teaching elementary through high school students privately, and leads a vibrant studio of young musicians.