Steinway Artist, Min Kwon, has been acclaimed as one of the most versatile and charismatic pianists of her generation. In demand as a pianist, teacher, and administrator, her professional activities has taken her to over 60 countries and all 50 States in the United States. Min holds a DMA from The Juilliard School, where she has won all honors available to pianists (Gina Bachauer International Piano Award, Concerto Competition that led to a debut at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center with the Juilliard Orchestra, and she was taught Chamber Music and Piano Minor, while still a student, as well as being selected to appear in numerous concerts representing the school). Today, she is honered to serve on The Juilliard Advisory Council, a committee comprised by invitation only, as an only musician and alumna.

Ms Kwon also pursued post-doctoral studies in Salzburg, Austria, under the guidance of late Hans Leygraf. Her love of European culture, and Austrian/German nature, language, repertoire, continues today as she makes her return visit to Vienna each summer to direct critically-acclaimed VIenna Concerto Fest, a one-of kind-festival where young soloists from around the world are given an extraordinary opportunities to appear in concerto concerts in prestigious venues surrounding Vienna, the world's most important city for a classical musician.

Min Kwon has over two dozen concerti in her repertoire, has given recitals in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Singapore, Seoul, Manila City, Copenhagen, anong numerous other cities. She has appeared in chamber music concerts and has most recently collaborated with 10 principal players of the Philadelphia Orchestra. As Artistic Director, she has conceived, programmed, produced and presented pianists of Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, where she serves as Chair of Keyboard Studies, in the annual gala performance at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall. Her singular passion and dedication to help support the young generation of artists also led her to found CME Center for Musical Excellence, USA, 501 (c) (3) a non-profit orgnization providing individualized mentoring and financial and professional support to deserving young musicians.

Min Kwon can be heard on several CDs to date. Her solo album of Schubert and Liszt won a Grammy in 2011 (Best Producer, David Frost). She has recorded for BMG/Red Seal (first Korean artists to do so, with her sister violinist Yoon Kwon) She has given over 200 recitals and workshops with Yoon Kwon (first violin of Metropolitan Opera Orchestra) under the auspices of Community Concerts, Columbia Artists forging a special connection with and buidling a fan club of audiences across all 50 states of America.

Distinguished artists she has collaborated are Aln Gilbert, James Conlon, Stanislaw Skrowzewski, Kynan Johns, Vaktang Giordania, and members of Guarneri, Orion, Shanghai, St. Lawrence Quartets. She regularly appears in chamber music with princpals of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. New Jersey Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Czech National Philahrmonic, Stavanger Symphony, and today's in demand performers, including Robert McDuffie, Fred Hersch, Conrad Herwig, Alexei Luvimov, Robert Lehrbaumer and countless others.

Min began her studies on piano at the age of three, won her first compeititon at the age of four in her native Seoul, Korea. Not wanting her to become a professional, her mother gave her lessons in violin and cello, which she played until she was 12. Teachers in all three instruments urged her to major in that instrument, but Min chose piano, soon followed her orchestral debut with the Korean Symphony on Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1 and with Seoul Philhamonic performing Saint Saens Concerto No. 2 on national TV braodcast. Accepted by the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 14, her North American debut with the Philadelphia Orcherstra took place in 1987 in Prokofiev Concerto No. 3. Other notable performances and debuts include Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center debut with the Juilliard Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival debut, both in the Beethoven Concerto No. 4. She also gave Asian premiere of Paul Schofield's notoriously difficult Four Parables for Piano and Orchestra in Korea. Among her most memorable performances, she counts one given at International micro-biologists conference held in Estonia, with her performing on a piano floating on a log boat on a candle lit lake, and eventually falling rains, and escorts holding umbrella for her.

She has appeared in Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Kimmel Center Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall.

She counts among her great musical influences and mentors as Dorothy DeLay, Leif Ove Andsnes, along with her first teacher, her mother, Yoojae Kwon. She has studied with Jin Woo Chung, Eleanor Sokoloff, Martin Canin. Becuase of coachings and through contact with numerous distinguished artists of this century, she believes that she has been able to arrive at her unique, inimitably effective, and very personal teaching style. Jerome Lowenthal, Gary Graffman, Leon Fleisher, John Perry, Joseph Kalchstein, Susan Starr, Andras Schiff, Kristian Zimmerman, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, Yefim Bronfman. Her succcess in teaching is eveident through the accomplishment and triumphant of her students. Already in her third decade of teaching, Min prides over 100 student alumni in CME, and over 50 at Rutgers where she has been on faculty since 2002, and a lot more through private studio.

Having lived in New York City for more than a decade, Min is proud to be back in New Jersey, and makes her home in Harding, New Jersey, a forever "Jersey girl" in her heart. She is, however, a true cosmopolitan in every sense, equally home and thriving in a variety of culture and country.

Self-declared, eternal student of life and passionate Leo, to those who know her and love her, she is an artist of gregarious and adventurous spirit that is contagious, and truly passionate about food as much she is about the music and the people in her life.

Piano