When Byeol Kim gets in the zone, she doesn’t just play the music — she lives the music.

“I almost feel like I’m living a different life at that moment,” she says. “I totally forget about my real life. It’s like I’m feeling Rachmaninoff’s pain.”

Kim, an assistant professor at Rollins College, will solo on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 during the Concertos by Candlelight program this weekend, part of the 91st annual Bach Festival in Winter Park.

That degree of passion makes sense when you learn she went on a hunger strike in order to learn to play the piano — we’ll return to that in just a bit.

Feeling the music so deeply is “worth it” in the moment, says Kim — but there is a price to pay.

“Afterward, you can feel empty, like a spirit has left you. That’s always kind of hard,” says Kim, who arrived in Central Florida in 2023. “I love to party and do social things, but not right after my performance.”

Byeol certainly left it all on the field, to use the old sports cliche, during her performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” on a Bach Festival Society program in November. At the time I wrote: “Pianist Byeol Kim played the work’s notes as if she had written them herself. She’s the kind of dynamic musician who lets the audience see her living in the music, pulling the notes out of her soul.”

As we chat, Kim fills me in on some personal information about that performance.

“I was throwing up in the bathroom and running to the stage,” says Kim, who is expecting her second child. “That was an interesting day.”

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Does she do anything special to prepare for such intense playing?

“‘Don’t think,’ I always tell myself,” but that’s easier said than done. “My brain never stops. Period. Sometimes I literally have a headache, with so many thoughts in my head at the same time.”

And she laughs at herself for never being content with what she’s playing.

“When I start working on something, it becomes the last thing I want to spend time on,” she says, pointing out that she’s currently craving “something peaceful” instead of the dramatic Rachmaninoff concerto.

“Maybe I’m saying this because I’m doing so much Rachmaninoff these days,” she says in a moment of introspection. “But when I was working on Gershwin, I couldn’t wait to dive into Rachmaninoff.”

Having performed across North America, Europe and Asia, Byeol’s list of prizes includes awards from the Cleveland, Paderewski (Poland), Dallas, Louisiana, San Antonio, New Orleans and Washington International Piano Competitions.

Born in South Korea, Byeol Kim is now an assistant professor of music at Rollins College, where she leads the Community Music School. (Courtesy Bach Festival Society of Winter Park)

It’s all a long way from the 4-year-old in rural South Korea, who could pick out tunes she heard on TV on the family piano. Her parents were less than enthusiastic about her musical yearnings.

“I had to protest,” recalls Kim, who now resides in east Orlando. “I locked myself in my room, and I refused to eat. I feel bad for my parents for that part. I was a diva.”

A diva who got results.

“They gave in pretty easy,” she says with a laugh.

But it was a struggle to find a teacher: No one in her own family was musical, but by her teenage years, “It became more clear to me that I just couldn’t do anything else.”

So she looked farther afield. Much farther.

“There was nothing offered in my town,” she says. “I took a five-hour bus ride one way to get a one-hour lesson. It was all day.”

Her work paid off with a degree in music from Seoul National University. But Kim had bigger dreams: “I had always wanted to come to the USA and see the Statue of Liberty.”

So, even though she didn’t speak English — “I couldn’t even ask for a cup of water on the plane,” Kim recalls — she booked a flight. And arranged auditions.

“I needed to prove myself: ‘I know how to play the piano and I will show you by entering this school,’” was her mindset.

At the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, she auditioned for Enrico Elisi. He didn’t speak Korean; they communicated through the music. She knew it was the place — and the teacher — for her.

“A lot of times, I’m a very uncertain person. I always weigh all the choices,” Kim says. “This one was clear.”

That was 14 years ago.

Elisi became her mentor: “He showed me what a musician can do and what real sound is all about. After that, my obsession with the sound palette went crazy.”

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Kim received a master’s degree in music from Eastman and later earned an artist diploma from the Glenn Gould School, a specialized music program for classical performance within The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada.

She followed that by becoming the first pianist accepted by Jon Kimura Parker into Rice University’s artist-diploma program, which focuses on performance and creative development, and then completed a doctorate at Northwestern University.

Her interest in teaching surprised even her.

“I always thought I was too spontaneous [to teach effectively], but that was not true,” Kim says. “I am a thinker. I want to share with the younger generation.”

The Bach Festival Society, based at Rollins College, attracted her to Central Florida.

She speaks highly of its artistic director, John Sinclair: “I’ve told him, I chose Rollins because of you and Bach,” she says.

Byeol Kim says the Bach Festival Society was one of the reasons she chose to take a job at Rollins College. (Courtesy Bach Festival Society)

He returns the compliment, saying, “Byeol Kim is a first-class musician and colleague. She breathes life into every piece of music she plays.”

Kim is also pleased to reach beyond the Rollins campus by leading the Community School of Music, which offers low-cost music lessons to all ages. It means a lot to her personally, she says, because of the difficulty she had obtaining piano lessons in her youth.

She’s thrilled to be living in Central Florida with her husband, director of project management in North America for the European company SGL, and their 2-year-old son — who shows signs of musical talent: “He’s a dancing machine — always singing so loud,” she says with a laugh.

It’s safe to say he won’t have to resort to locking himself in his room if he wants music lessons someday. With another son on the way, Kim is looking forward to the future.

“In Orlando,” she says, “all the good things are happening for us.”

Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Find more entertainment news and reviews at orlandosentinel.com/entertainment or sign up to receive our weekly emailed Entertainment newsletter.

‘Concertos by Candlelight’

• When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20 and 21

• Where: Knowles Memorial Chapel on the Rollins College campus, 1000 Holt Ave. in Winter Park

• Cost: $25 and up

• Info: bachfestivalflorida.org

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2026/02/18/byeol-kim-bach-festival-pianist-concert/