Dr. Hajin Kim is currently a piano faculty member at Michigan State University Community Music School and an adjunct piano professor at Grand Rapids Community College. She is also an piano faculty member for every summer at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and previously served at Siena Heights University.
Dr. Kim has continually increased her private studio lessons and classes since starting to teach at CMS at Michigan State University. Through her lessons, in which she teaches all levels of piano and theory classes, she has provided many students with a broad view that enabled them to improve their performances and assignments. Her dedication and commitment have helped ensure her students’ elevated performance, as evidenced at select competition awards, such as the Capital Area of Michigan Music Teachers Association (CAMTA) of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and the Performing Arts Students (PAS) club in Lansing, Michigan. She has also served as an adjudicator for music competition of Michigan PTA Reflections Arts Program since 2019.
Born in Seoul Korea, she began her piano studies at age four, winning the first prize of the Yook Young National Piano Competition in Seoul, Korea, at age six and the first prize of the Seoul National Music Competition in South Korea at age eleven. Dr. Kim earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree (DMA) in piano performance at Michigan State University, where she also received her second Master degree of Music (MM) for piano pedagogy as a double major with her piano performance major, and her first Master of Music degree (MM) in piano performance at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, Korea. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree (BM) in piano performance at Boston Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts.
As a solo pianist, Dr. Kim has performed at multiple venues, including piano solo and chamber recitals at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Centro Studi Carlo Della Giacoma in Todi, Italy, and throughout South Korea, and Boston, St. John, East Lansing, Lansing, and Twin Lake, throughout the USA, etc. Based on her proven curriculum for the class piano for all levels, she published two piano textbooks. Piano Master for Everyone Level I received excellent reviews from Kirkus Reviews, one of the top critics for new publications in New York:
“Readers will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly they’re able to try their hands at classic compositions…”; “covering exactly what the reader needs to know, and not a sentence more”; and “aspiring players seeking to teach themselves directly from the page couldn’t find more straightforward instruction.” -Kirkus Reviews in New York
Piano Master for Everyone Level II was also selected as the top 5% of best books published in 2022 by Outskirts Press and got a bronze, the 3rd placed prize of Academic/Educational category in EVVY Awards, which is an international independent publishing awards, supported by CIPA (Colorado Independent Publishers Association) in 2023.
She has not only performed as an active soloist, but has also participated in chamber recitals and master classes. As an active musician and teacher of piano pedagogy, she has acquired successful teaching experience by giving private lessons and by teaching all levels of class piano.
