About this Artist

Dr. Saerom Kim has been widely praised for the expressivity, flexibility, and technical prowess of her clarinet playing. She currently serves as Principal Clarinetist of the Norwalk (CT) Symphony Orchestra, a position she won in September 2022. Born in South Korea, she has won numerous awards, including Grand Prize at the Korean Clarinet Association Competition, third prize at the International Clarinet Association Competition, and first prize in the Paranov Concerto Competition.

In March 2017, she performed John Corigliano’s Clarinet Concerto with the Hartt Orchestra. In the summer of 2018, she performed Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Inori and Gruppen with the Lucerne Festival Academy at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, the Philharmonie de Paris in France, and the Berliner Philharmonie in Germany under the baton of Peter Eötvös and Sir Simon Rattle. In 2019, she returned to the Lucerne Festival Alumni Orchestra in Switzerland, under the direction of Riccardo Chailly.

Saerom has participated in several other music festivals, including the Moritzburg Music Festival, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Sarasota Music Festival. She received Bachelor's and Master's of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Ayako Oshima and Charles Neidich. In 2020, Saerom completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Hartford, the Hartt School. During her doctoral degree, she wrote her dissertation, “An Evolution of Isang Yun’s Compositional Approach: A Comparative Study of Riul, Piri and Clarinet Concerto.” She currently lives in Stamford, Connecticut.