Rachel Kim enjoys a diverse and rewarding career as a concert pianist, chamber musician, educator, and mentor in the Bay Area. Recognized as a powerful and lyrical pianist, she has established herself as a versatile musician and is deeply immersed in the chamber music world of San Francisco.

She is a founding member of San Francisco-based piano trio, Curium. Winners of the 2017 Barbara Fritz Chamber Music Award sponsored by the Berkeley Piano Club, the trio specializes in performing the works of women composers and has gained momentum among Bay Area audiences of diverse backgrounds. Founded in 2017, they have been invited to perform in some of the Bay Area’s leading concert series, including Old First Concerts, SF Music Day at San Francisco War Memorial, Berkeley Chamber Players, and Sunset Music and Arts Series, among others. In the summer of 2017 they were invited to perform at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University as part of the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar International Showcase, and have been a featured ensemble in the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University. As new music advocates they have collaborated with leading Bay Area female composers, recently Curium completed a project with the Helia Music Collective to present a series of recitals, where they premiered three new works by women composers. Curium is a fiscally sponsored affiliate of Intermusic SF and are the recipients of the 2020 Musical Grant Program; their stipend will be used to produce a CD recording of women composers.

Rachel’s diverse musical experiences have helped her students navigate the challenging world of classical music in today’s society. She is on faculty at the Branson School in Ross, CA, where she is the director of the choral and chamber music programs. In this capacity, she was instrumental in gaining momentum for the program. She is the conductor of the Branson Chorus and Orchestra, whose performances have included Faure Requiem and Vivaldi Gloria at Dominican University. She is the Musical Director of the music theatre program and oversees the hiring and leading of the band and singers throughout the show. As an experienced and sought-after private teacher, her students have gone on to study in music programs such as Bard College and Conservatory and University of Colorado-Denver.

Her performances encompass a broad scope of venues and genres. From 2014-16 she was on staff at the Conservatory as an accompanist for the undergraduate and graduate string department. She is a member of the historic Berkeley Piano Club, a women-only musical club founded in.    , and maintains a prolific performance schedule in the East Bay. Her collaborations with Bay Area musicians such as the Bach concert series at the Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museum with Alexandra Hawley and Roy Milan, Chamber Music Society of Sacramento with William Barbini.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, she started her musical journey learning music theory and improvisation with her mother, a jazz and rock pianist based in Seoul. Her primary piano studies began at age eleven with Helen Smith Tarchalski in Gaithersburg, MD. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree with honors from the Catholic University of America, where she studied with Marilyn Neeley and Jose Ramos Santana, and a Master of Music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she continues her studies with Paul Hersh. A passionate and dedicated chamber musician, she had the opportunity to collaborate with musicians such as Bonnie Hampton, Ian Swenson, Mack McCray, and Jennifer Culp in the chamber music program at SF Conservatory.