Biography

Raised in rural Seosan, South Korea, composer and pianist Yeeun Sim (b.2002) aims to create various atmospheres in her music, inspired by nature, paintings, books, imaginative spaces, and other sources, to draw emotions from her audience. Sim’s main objective as a musician is to convey her messages and feelings through her music while considering its influence in the context of diverse audiences. Particularly, she is interested in not only the artistic meaning of music itself but also music being meaningful as a question to the audience so that they can think about different topics after listening. Moreover, she thinks that music can be a language that can communicate with various emotions that are not easily articulated verbally. Sim believes that art can influence people in diverse areas in numerous ways, which have the potential that can cause a big change in the world.

Sim is a prize-winning composer who won 2024 Metropolitan Youth Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition, 2022 Call for Scores by Liminal Space Ensemble, Third Prize in the 2023 Busan Maru International Composition Competition, and Second Prize in the Senior International Division of 2020 Golden Key Piano Composition Competition, and was a finalist of the 2022 ASCAP Morton Gould Composer Award and 13th Fidelio International Piano Composition Contest. She attended the 2022 RED NOTE New Music Festival, 2023 Mostly Modern Festival, 2023 Norfolk Chamber Music Festival New Music Workshop, and 2023 Brevard Summer Music Festival. She participated in the masterclass hosted by Bright Sheng, Missy Mazzoli, Jessie Montgomery, and Mercedes Zavala and got lessons from Samuel Adler, Martin Bresnick, Robert Aldridge, David Dzubay, Mara Gibson, and Stephen Cabell. Her works have been performed by notable ensembles, such as Hub New Music, Tacet(i) Ensemble, Liminal Space Ensemble, Neave Trio, and Earspace.

Sim started learning piano at the age of 5 and studying composition with Professor Baickho Cha when she was 15 years old. She graduated from Gyeonggi Arts High School in 2021, where she performed many of her early works as a composer and several piano pieces as a pianist. During her high school years, Sim collaborated with many musician friends and participated in Gyeonggi Arts High School Orchestra, Choir, and Wind Band. She is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Composition at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, studying with Dr. Kevin Puts.