2024 MIMA Young Artist Competition Winner's Concert

Multi-Grammy nominated artist, Marta Aznavoorian, has performed to critical acclaim throughout the world as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. Hailing from Chicago, she has collaborated with distinguished conductors such as Sir George Solti and Michael Tilson Thomas, performing with notable orchestras like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and New World Symphony. Ms. Aznavoorian is a founding member of the Lincoln Trio and has frequented many festivals, including Tanglewood Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Marlboro Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Caramoor Festival, Hornby Island, Green Lake Festival, and Ravinia Festival. Aznavoorian is on faculty and recently appointed Artist in Residence at the Music Institute of Chicago and Piano and Chamber Music faculty at DePaul University School of Music. As a dedicated Educator and philanthropist, Aznavoorian has worked with many music programs to help create training pathways for students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds through her new foundation, Keynote Productions. Marta Aznavoorian is a Steinway Artist.

Suejin Jung is a Korean-American concert pianist and multimedia artist praised for her “exhilarating, alternately mysterious… profound, contemplative playing” (Opus Klassiek) and for “stepping outside the box -artistically and personally” (Goodmesh). She has performed internationally with Ensemble Calliopée, the Ruse Philharmonic, Rutgers Symphony, and The Discovery Orchestra, and at series and festivals including Tuesdays@Monk Space, Laguna Beach Live, Écoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, Music Academy International and April in Santa Cruz with broadcasts on PBS, NPO Klassiek and the Strad. She co-founded MIMA to support collaborative art-making and the education of young musicians. Jung teaches at the Montecito International Music Festival, has taught at Drew University and Rutgers University, has given masterclasses and performances at UC Irvine, Cal State Riverside and Fullerton, Seoul Arts High School, Chamber Music | OC, and serves on the board of the Music Teachers’ Association of California. She studied at Juilliard, École Normale de Musique de Paris as a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholar, and completed her doctorate at Rutgers University.

Mari Kimura is a violinist/composer, entrepreneur, and a leading figure in interactive computer music. She is world-renowned for Subharmonics—the production of pitches that sound up to an octave below the violin’s lowest string—and her dynamic performances as an interpreter as well as an improviser. She received numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Fromm Commission Award from Harvard University, a residency award at IRCAM in Paris, and from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Educated at Toho School of Music, Boston University and The Juilliard School, Mari is a Professor of Music at UC Irvine and at Juilliard. In 2017, She developed a motion sensor prototype MUGIC®, a small WIFI device which can be worn as a ‘wearable tech’ or attached to objects. Commercialized in 2020, MUGIC® is now used by musicians, artists and beyond and in numerous conservatories and universities around the world such as Harvard, Juilliard, Univ. of Toronto and University of Arts in Berlin. As an entrepreneur, Mari received the Certificate of Recognition from the House of Representatives and the California State Assembly in 2020. She’s a co-founder of MIMA.