Twenty-year old Gaeun Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, and began to play the cello at four years old. Since the age of seven, Gaeun has won multiple awards in numerous international competitions. She is the 2022 First Prize winner of the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, where she also was awarded the Pablo Casals Prize for Best Performance of Solo Bach.

In November 2012, she received both first prize and the special award in the Antonio Janigro Competition in Jagreb, Croatia. She has also won first prizes in the 2014 Liezen International Competition, and the 2015 David Popper International Cello Competition. She was selected as a “Samsung Rising Star” and one of “30 rising stars in Culture & Arts Industry in Republic of Korea.” Gaeun was also the youngest participant in the 2018 Isang-Yun International Competition and the 2019 XVI Tchaikovsky International Competition. More recently, she was selected as one of the six winners of the ‘Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle’, led by world beloved cellist, Gautier Capucon. Gaeun performed as the Louis Vuitton Foundation Artist until 2021.

Gaeun has also won first prize in many national competitions, including the Seoul Classic Music Competition, the Music & Chunchu Competition, the Little Mozart Competition, the Yewon Competition, the Youngsan Music Competition, the Sungjeong Music Competition, and the Ehwa & Kyunghyang Competition. She is also a recipient of the Shinhan Music Award, the Yewon Music Award, and the Director Award of the Korean National Institute for Gifted in Arts.

She has played in orchestras in both South Korea and abroad, such as the Zagreb Soloists, the Euro-Asian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Suwon Symphony Orchestra, the Incheon Symphony Orchestra, the Bucheon Symphony Orchestra, the Seongnam Symphony Orchestra, and the New World Philharmonic Orchestra.

Gaeun has also performed in the Special Concert for Her Majesty Mathilde the Queen of the Belgians and the First Lady of the Republic of Korea, the Antonio Janigro Cello Festival, the Asian Forum of Legislative Information Affairs, the 17th Anniversary Celebration Concert of CBS in Jeju Island, the One Month Festival, the Hwaseoung Music Festival, the 50th Anniversary Concert of Yewon Art School, the 7th Seoul Culture Night Concert hosted by Seoul Metropolitan Government, the Celebration of the March 1st Independence Movement Festival, and a collaboration with the Korea Institute of Arts and Genetic Education Concert.

Gaeun is active as a soloist, with solo recitals at Kumho Art Hall (2013, 2015), Samik Art Hall, International Hall, Shinhan Art Hall, and SELC Hall. Gaeun is continuing her music life as an artist of Jargar Strings and studying with cellist Gautier Capucon. She is in her second year at The Juilliard School from 2020, and studies there with Richard Aaron.