Michael Jinsoo Lim

Biography

Violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim has been praised for playing with “delicious abandon”by Gramophone, described as “bewitching” and “masterful” by the Seattle Times and hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “conspicuously accomplished champion of contemporary music.” He enjoys a dynamic career as a soloist, concertmaster, chamber musician and recording artist. Lim is concertmaster and solo violinist of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra (“surely the best ballet band in America”—New York Times), founder of the Seattle-based ensemble Frequency (“a dream” ensemble—King FM-Seattle’s Second Inversion) and director and co-founder of Planet M Records.

Lim’s solo appearances with Pacific Northwest Ballet include performances in Paris, New York City, Los Angeles and Seattle, of works such as Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto and Duo Concertant, Prokofiev’s first Violin Concerto, Max Richter’s Vivaldi Four Seasons Recomposed, Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel and Richard Einhorn’s rock and roll-inspired piece for electric violin, Maxwell’s Demon. His solos have been heard at the Paris festival Les étés de la danse and the Vail International Dance Festival.

Lim’s discography can be found on Naxos, Planet M, Sono Luminus, DreamWorks, Albany, Bridge, CRI, Bayer Records, RIAX and New Focus. He has recorded numerous world premieres, including Andrew Waggoner’s Violin Concerto, solo violin works by Melia Watras and chamber music by John Corigliano. His new solo album Kinetic, featuring world premieres of newly-commissioned works by Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Paola Prestini and Watras, will be released in 2024.

For twenty years, Lim toured and recorded with the Corigliano Quartet, a group he co-founded. With the quartet, he won the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming, and performed in the nation’s leading music centers, including Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and the Kennedy Center. The quartet’s Naxos label CD was honored as one of The New Yorker’s Ten Best Classical Recordings of the Year.

Offstage endeavors include producing three critically acclaimed albums by violist/composer Melia Watras (as well as being co-producer on a fourth), his work as lyricist for a number of compositions by Watras, and an appearance alongside Jinkx Monsoon in a promotional video for the city of Seattle. Lim is the inspiration for a character in Erica Miner’s operatic mystery novel, Death by Opera.

Lim was among the final pupils of legendary violinist and pedagogue Josef Gingold at Indiana University. He later studied chamber music at the Juilliard School, where he also taught as an assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet. He currently serves on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts. Lim has given violin and chamber music classes throughout the US and in France, Korea and Mexico. He has served on the faculty of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and taught at Indiana University as a guest professor.

—September 2023