Seong Ae Kim (she/ her) is a Korean-born composer based in New York City. A recent awardee of Jerome Hill Artist Grant, New Music USA Grant and Composers now/ Rockefeller Brothers fund fellowship, she has received commissions from internationally acclaimed ensembles and soloists such as Yarn/Wire, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Amanda Gookin,  Forward Music Project,  Parhelion Trio,  Hypercube,  Ensemble mise-en, Ensemble Ipse, Popebama, Iktus Percussion+, Experiments in Opera, Ensemble Pan,  Multicultural Sonic Evolution,  Josh Perry, Vasko Dukovsky, Kelley Barnett, and Jessica Kunttu among others.

Her recent works spanning the past 5 years have been acutely focused on amplifying self-truth and voicing social justice concerns. Compositions as #MeToo (2018), Break free (2022), Gravity-levity (2022), the other untold story (2019), Percèe (2018) and Collocation (2018) are self-confessional in nature. These pieces aim to tell her own stories of past breakthroughs and to create safe spaces to share vulnerabilities that connect us all as human beings. 

As an advocate for social justice, she has collaborated with fellow artists to create the pieces Mazyrinth (2022), 2 Folk songs (2022), We are here (2021), SIDE-BLOW (2021), Fever dream (2021), Red-blue-very white (2019) and sound of soundless (2016) to address current social crises. She lends her voice through these pieces to encourage those who are marginalized and voiceless to stand up and amplify themselves for their basic human rights.

Her works were presented at June in Buffalo, Composer’s conference,  International Alliance of Women in Music, Women Composers Festival of Hartford,  International double reed society,  Audio Trending Manual Festival in Korea, New York Women Composers Inc. Festival, Music by Women Festival in Mississippi and Hot air music festival to name a few.

Her compositions have been performed by various ensembles and artists such as Andrés Orozco-Estrada, James Baker, Er-Gene Kahng, the Köhne Quartet, the Krechkovsky–Loucks Duo, Pro Arte Orchestra, Rath Duo, and Ensemble Hansori among others. Her music has been presented in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Thailand, Japan, Korea and in the US. Her works are published by Universal Edition.

She holds a PhD in music composition from Stony Brook University, Mdiv from Drew University and an MA and BA in both composition and conducting from University for music and performing arts Vienna - mdw, Austria (Einstimmige Auszeichnung- unanimous distinction).