Han Kim (South Korea)

Appointed by Maestro Gustavo Dudamel in 2023, Clarinetist Han Kim is the principal clarinetist of the orchestra of the prestigious Opéra national de Paris, working as the first and only Asian Super-soliste in the orchestra of 350-year history. He is one of the leading wind instrument players who breaks the prejudice that ‘Asians are not good at wind instruments,’ and promotes the revival of Korean classical music on the world stage.

Born in Seoul in Feb. 1996, Han began playing clarinet at the age of eight. Since he launched his career at the age of 11, he surprised the media critics and got favorable reviews, such as “Clarinet prodigy – Seung-hoon Jeon (Dong-A Ilbo)” and “For this gifted child, even his breathing is an instrument – Seong-hyeon Kim (Chosun-Ilbo).” Further, rarely as a wind instrumentalist, he has been recognized for his talent as a soloist since young age, performing with leading orchestras such as the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra.

As a chamber musician, he is developing his identity as a young virtuoso from a prodigy, through his artistic partnerships with Seong-Jin Cho, Igor Levit, Arto Noras, Daniel Müller-Schott, and so on, and performed at festivals such as the Heidelberg Spring Music Festival in Germany, the City of London Festival in the UK, the Pablo Casals Festival in France, the Japan International Clarinet Festival and Tongyeong International Music Festival. During the 2021 season, he was selected as the Artist in Residence at Kumho Art hall in Seoul as the first wind instrument player, and performed a variety of concerts across genres such as jazz.

Han also an enthusiastic orchestral musician, since the start of his career as an academist of Zurich Opera orchestra at the age of 20. He then moved to Helsinki in 2019 to join the Finnish Radio symphony orchestra, which he served as 2nd Solo Clarinet player for 4 years, and he regularly worked as guest principal at numerous orchestras such as London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre national de France, BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Han consistently collaborates with composers and loves the challenge of translating modern and contemporary music into his own style. He has worked with composers such as Magnus Lindberg, Thomas Ades for their orchestral works, and performed Brett Dean’s Clarinet Concerto ‘Ariel’s Music’ under the baton of the composer himself. He also premiered Jeajoon Ryu’s Clarinet sonata and Clarinet quintet, Fuminori Tanada’s Clarinet concerto.

Han Kim is the winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2nd Beijing International Music Competition at the age of 13, and won both the first prize by unanimous decision and the audience prize at the 3rd Jacques Lancelot International Clarinet Competition in 2016. By winning the 2^nd prize, Henle-Urtext prize and the audience award at the 68th Munich ARD International Music Competition in 2019, Han proved himself as one of the world’s leading next-generation clarinetists.

With a YouTube community of 26k subscribers and over 10 million views, Han is trying to building new audiences in clarinet music which is rather unknown instrument compared to Piano and Strings. Han Kim completed his studies with honors at the Musikhochschule Lübeck under Sabine Meyer.