Kimberly won the 2015 Crain-Maling Foundation Chicago Symphony Orchestra Youth Auditions.
On Saturday’s encore broadcast, we feature 14 year old pianist Kimberly Han, an eighth grader at Deer Path Middle School in Lake Forest, Illinois. Kimberly was just named the winner of the 2015 Crain-Maling Foundation Chicago Symphony Orchestra Youth Auditions. As a result, she will perform in a Chicago Symphony Orchestra Youth Concert during the 2015/2016 season.
Kimberly is a frequent award-winner in many music events – First Prize winner of 2014 Roberta Savler Piano Competition, 2014 11th DePaul Concerto Festival, 2013 18th Walgreens National Concerto Competition, 2013 15th Chopin Youth Piano Competition, 2012 EDR Concerto Competition and many. Most recently, Kimberly won 3rd Prize in 2014 Los Angeles Young Musicians International Piano Competition in August 2014 and Honorable Mention of MTNA Competition (Illinois State) in November 2014.
As a solo pianist and chamber musician, Kimberly has performed in Preston Bradley Hall of Chicago Culture Center, DePaul Concert Hall and Ravinia’s Bennett-Gordon Hall. She had her concert debut with Oistrach Symphony Orchestra performing Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 in February 2014. She was also selected by the Lang Lang International Music Foundation as 1 of 14 Junior Music Ambassadors from 11 countries and performed concerts with world-famous pianist Lang Lang in L’Auditori of Barcelona, Spain on November 10-16, 2014.
Kimberly demonstrated her love of music from very early age. Her favorite composers are Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn. She has given solo performances at many retirement centers throughout Chicagoland over the past years (2012-2014) and benefit concerts at various chapters of Lyric Opera of Chicago. In her free time, Kimberly loves playing violin with MYA orchestra/chamber ensemble and school chamber orchestra, playing tennis, reading and traveling around the world with her family.
Kimberly would like to thank her wonderful teachers Brenda Huang and Sonia Hadar for their inspiration and coaching her discipline, dedication and love for appreciating and performing classical music; Dr. Allan Dennis, Robert Bassill, Rami Solomonow, Lyudmila Lakisova and the MYA staff for providing her the great opportunity to grow as a young musician; her parents and all of her friends for their continuous support and encouragement.