Dr. Bok Hwa Kim

Born in Korea, pianist Bok Hwa Kim made her solo debut at the age of six in Seoul.

Later she and her family followed her American piano teacher, Mrs. Josephine Flexner, a pupil of Nadia Boulanger and Olga Samaroff, to the United States and, at the age of

eleven, gave her orchestral debut in Memphis, playing Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. She has since won top placements in numerous competitions, and has been a semi-finalist in the Washington International Competition, the Louise D. McMahan Competition, and the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition. As a student in the Peabody Conservatory, she studied piano with Lillian Freundlich, Leon Fleisher and Julian Martin, and harpsichord/fortepiano with Shirley Mathews, before earning her Doctorate in Musical Arts. Her training in the early keyboard instruments, though minor compared to that of piano, figured prominently in her doctoral research in the evolution of idiomatic fortepiano style in Haydn’s keyboard sonatas. She also holds a master’s degree from the Julliard School, under the tutelage of Bartók’s protégé György Sándor. 

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Dr. Bok Hwa Kim had been an assistant to Julian Martin and had taught in Howard

Community College, the Levine School of Music and the Peabody Conservatory. She has been an active member in the MSMTA organization for more than two decades.