Noted by The New York Times for giving “the proceedings an invaluable central thread of integrity and stylishness,” violinist Ariana Kim made her New York recital debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall during her doctoral studies at Juilliard and is now a tenured a professor at Cornell University.  At 16, Ariana made her debut with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and at 24 was appointed acting concertmaster of the Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans; she has since become one of the most respected artists of her generation.  

As a violinist of the Aizuri Quartet she was awarded the 2017 Osaka International Competition Grand Prize, the 2018 M-Prize, and a 2019 GRAMMY® nomination for the album Blueprinting.  During her tenure, the ensemble served as a Quartet-in-Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and presented recitals at Suntory Hall Tokyo, the University of Toronto, Duke University, and the Kennedy Center, among others.  Equally devoted to contemporary and long-established literature, Ariana held a 10-year position with the New York new music ensemble Ne(x)tworks and is currently in her 19th season with The Knights; their 2016 recording …the ground beneath our feet… on which Ariana is a featured soloist alongside Guillaume Pirard in Steve Reich’s Duet, was chosen as NPR’s “Songs We Love” for the year.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ariana embarked on a social justice project with composer Steve Heitzeg and actor-narrators Lou and Sarah Bellamy to create a work shedding light on police violence and community building; the project culminated in a multi-media work for solo violin, spoken word, and video footage of the protests and street art that emerged during the demonstrations of 2020 entitled How Many Breaths? In Honor of George Floyd and Countless Others.

During 2016, Ariana lived and worked in northern Italy performing a series of recital tours, playing with Milano Classica, and presenting a Cornell Council for the Arts project working with a group of newly settled asylum-seekers of Cooperativa Selene to welcome them into their new life through the arts.  During her 2021 sabbatical year in South Korea, Ariana spent seven months studying the gayageum (an ancient zither-style instrument), performing throughout the country, and presenting master classes at Seoul National University.  She was appointed co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota and Paesaggi Musicali Toscani in Siena, Italy in 2019.  In the 2022-23 season, Ariana began a multi-year Carnegie Hall residency with The Knights, returned to Seoul for a recital with pianist Hyo-Jung Huh, and presented the world premiere of Piyawat Louilapprasert’s violin concerto Tweeeeter  in Bangkok. 

The 2024-2025 season brought a 6-performance residency at the Minneapolis Institute of Art exploring sound in pure darkness, a recital featuring Ariana’s new piece for violin and gayageum, Apba Hagoo, Nah Hagoo at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., and rare performance of Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 1 at Jordan Hall in Boston with the Cornell Symphony.  During the first half of 2025, Ariana moved to Mysore, Karnataka to dive deeply into the Carnatic violin and musical traditions of South India, studying with Dr. Mysore Manjunath. After returning to the US, she was honored to return to her native Twin Cities serving as host for This Is Minnesota Orchestra, the ensemble’s live PBS and MPR broadcasts and to the Bay Area for two solo recitals and a residency with NorCal Music. Her upcoming solo album, (un)common thread, explores improvisation through the lens of Mozart and Beethoven sonatas alongside world folk music with collaborators Roger Moseley (fortepiano) and Shane Shanahan (percussion) is set for release on Tiger Turn Records in April 2026.

Ariana shares her time between New York City and Ithaca, NY where she resides with her Cornell Lab of Ornithologhy biologist-husband, Jordan.  In-between concert tours and teaching, Ariana can be found cooking yummy things, doing yoga, and climbing lots of rocks.