Hi Kyung Kim (born in 1954), a native of Korea, received a B.A. in composition from Seoul National University, and the M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she received an Eisner prize in Creative Arts and two Di Lorenzo Composition Prizes. As a recipient of the U.C. Berkeley’s George C. Ladd Prix de Paris, she worked at Institut de Rechéreche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) and École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1988-1990. Her composition teachers were Andrew Imbrie, Olly Wilson, Gérald Grisey, and Sung-Jae Lee. Currently she is an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Her honors/awards include the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress Commission, Commissioning USA grant from Meet the Composer, awards from the Tanglewood Music Center, MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Cleveland Dodge Foundation, American Music Center, a grant from the University of California InterCampus Arts Program, which made possible the Pacific Rim Festival of Contemporary Music (1996), at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and others. Her works have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony, Cabrillo Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, Rohnert Park Symphony, U.C. Berkeley Symphony, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay, Empyrean Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, and many others. Her interest in Korean Traditional Music took her back to Korea in 1985 and 1998 for study. Her research on the music of Elliot Carter was done at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, Switzerland.

Ms. Kim has recently completed a piece commissioned by Meet the Composer and the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota with Yo-Yo Ma, under the direction of Myung-Hun Chung, for a special project "Commemorating World War II." This event will be performed in throughout the Asia, the US and Canada. Her recent works include a piece for string quartet written for the Alexander String Quartet; a piece for two pianos, commissioned by Aki Takahashi & Rae Imamura, and a piece for percussion duo for the New Music Ensemble at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her current projects include a commission by the Koussevitzky Foundation and Chamber Music Society of Minnesota for voice and chamber ensemble in collaboration with the noted Korean poet Ko Un, and a "Requiem" for chamber ensemble & chamber choir for the California Ensemble Parallèle, New Music Ensemble at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of California Santa Cruz Chamber Choir conducted by Nicole Paiement. Her music is published by C.F. Peters Edition and American Composers Edition and her music is recorded on the Capstone and Centaur labels.