Christian Kim

Assistant Professor, Music Business, Jazz/Commercial Composition

A native of Seoul, Korea, Christian Kim immigrated to Fairfax, Virginia with his family at the age of thirteen. He is a versatile composer and pianist who composes and performs works in various musical genres such as jazz, Latin, classical, pop, gospel, and more. Since completing an intense study of traditional folk music where he traveled to more than sixty countries, Christian now utilizes folk musical elements as the basic premise of many of his musical compositions. His areas of research include “20th century classical music (Schoenberg and Viennese circle, twelve-tone serialism, and others),” “German ultra-chromaticism in the late romantic era,” “Jazz orchestration techniques,” and “Analyzing classical music with jazz languages.”

Christian established his music industry career in Los Angeles where he worked as a sound engineer, producer, and arranger. He released an album (all original composition) at Universal Music Group and worked as a producer and arranger in numerous recordings. He has performed with Charlie Haden, Joe LaBarbera, Grady Tate, Darek Oleszkiewicz, Ron Brown, Rayford Griffin just to name a few.

Prior to his appointment at WSU, Christian served as Assistant Professor at Middle Georgia State University from 2018 to 2022 and Music Program Chair at Atlanta Metropolitan State College from 2014 to 2018. Christian is a coffee fanatic and foodie at heart and loves to pick up new recipes during his travels. He loves ridiculously spicy food from time to time. He is an animal lover with a special affinity for dogs, but alas having allergies to pet dander prevents him from owning one.

EDUCATION

Doctorate
University of Texas at Austin (Music Composition), D.M.A.
University of Southern California (Jazz Studies), ABD.

Master
California Institute of the Arts (Jazz Studies), M.F.A.
Liberty University (Biblical Studies), M.Div.
Liberty University (Biblical Studies), M.A.

Baccalaureate
Howard University (Jazz Studies), B.M.