British-Korean pianist Jinah Shim began learning the piano at the age of five in Birmingham. During her junior school years, she represented the Northfield Festival at the National Piano Festival in London and was a winner of the European Piano Teacher’s Association competition. At the age of fourteen, she was the youngest finalist of the Glasgow International Piano Competition. She then went on to study with Professor Malcolm Wilson at the Birmingham Conservatoire on a full scholarship as a junior student.
In 2011, she won 'Chandos Young Musician of the Year' and was consequently invited performed Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Chandos Symphony Orchestra a year later. She was also the first Guildhall winner of the 2011 Enescu scholarship offered by the Romanian Cultural Institute. In 2015, Jinah won 1st prize at Christopher Duke Piano Competition and won 2nd prize at Brighton’s Springboard Concerto competition, as well as being an artist for Making Music’s Philip and Dorothy Award for Young Concert Artists scheme. In 2017, she won the House Concert Prize at Euregio Award International Competition for which she played a concert in Geilenkirchen, Germany. Last year, she won 1st prize at the Alexander Kelly Concerto Competition, 2nd prize at Tunbridge Wells International Piano Competition and 1st prize at John Longmire Competition. Earlier this year, she won the Mozart Memorial Prize where she was award the title of 'Pianist in association with London Mozart Players'.
Notable past performances include performing concertos with London Mozart Players and directing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12 at the piano with Birmingham Junior Chamber Orchestra. She has performed with a variety of orchestras including Southampton Concert Orchestra, Havant Symphony Orchestra, Petersfield Orchestra, Dorking Chamber Orchestra, Aylesbury Symphony Orchestra, and Winchester Chamber Orchestra. She also performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at Birmingham Festival Orchestra’s inaugural concert. Jinah regularly gives recitals as a soloist and has performed around the UK including London’s Wigmore Hall, Steinway Hall, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. James’s Piccadilly Church.
Not only is she interested in solo piano, she is also an avid chamber musician and represented the UK at the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival in 2014 with her piano trio. She is also the pianist of the Hill piano quartet and performed at Orpheus and Bacchus Music Festival in France in 2015. In 2017, she co-founded Leipzig Duo, with which she has won multiple awards and competitions in Godalming and Kent International Piano Course. She currently works with cellist Helena Svigelj as part of Meridies Duo and have performed recitals around the UK.
Jinah currently studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London with pianists Sergio de Simone and Peter Tuite. Jinah is also an artist for Concordia Foundation and is most grateful for the support of the Limoges Trust, Henry Wood Trust and the Worshipful Company of Skinners’, where she was awarded the title of an Atwell Scholar.
