DoYeon Kim is an internationally acclaimed artist known for her expansive and pioneering performances and compositions and for introducing the gayageum, an ancient Korean zither, into contemporary music. Trained extensively in jazz and improvisation as well as in the canon of classical Korean music including sanjo, jeongak, and modern gugak, DoYeon channels history, literature, and an ever-evolving sense of the human spirit in a musical language entirely her own through her original compositions, powerful solo performances, and collaborations with artists around the world. Recognized as one of 7 Musicians Pushing Ancient Asian Instruments Into The Future (Grammy.com, 2021), she has received the Van Lier Fellowship (2023) and been nominated for a Korean Grammy Award (crossover category, 2018). Most recently, she was selected as a Next Jazz Legacy awardee (2025), further solidifying her presence in the contemporary jazz scene.
In the course of her traditional training in Korea, DoYeon won numerous competitions including the Dong-A Ilbo Traditional Music and the National Gugak Center Korean Music Competitions. Seeking to bring Korean traditional idioms into conversation with global contemporary music, she later pursued degrees in contemporary improvisation and jazz from the New England Conservatory and from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute—both programs to which she was the first student ever admitted to play a Korean traditional instrument. Following her graduate studies, DoYeon has served on the faculty at the New England Conservatory and The New School, and as a guest lecturer at several universities worldwide including Harvard, Franz Liszt Academy, and Universidad Nacional De Colombia.
DoYeon regularly leads her own music projects, working with ensembles of diverse size and composition, and she frequently collaborates with composers, performers, and artists of all disciplines. She currently serves as an invited composer for the Delirium Musicum string orchestra (2025), Music Director for the ACCX Music Festival Gwangju (2025), and music director and conductor for the Gyeonggi Sinawi Orchestra (2023). She has performed and recorded alongside such notable musicians as Tyshawn Sorey, Mark Dresser, Kris Davis, Peter Evans, Matt Mitchell, Anna Webber, Joe Morris, Tony Malaby, Mat Maneri, Cooper-Moore, and many others.
