Pops Concert to Feature Faculty Pianist

Celebrating its 127th year, Tech Night at Pops is part of MIT Tech Reunions, which will take place on campus May 30–June 1, 2025. (Some milestone reunion classes will celebrate May 29–June 1.) Learn more.

Lovers of the composer George Gershwin will be in for a treat this year as a selection from his masterful 1925 Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra will be a highlight of Tech Night at Pops, one of the most popular events of Tech Reunions. The performance, featuring soloist Mi-Eun Kim, an award-winning pianist and director of keyboard studies in Music and Theater Arts (MTA) at MIT, will take place Friday, May 30, at Symphony Hall in Boston.

“What’s special about this performance is, we’re going to use the critical edition of the piano part created by the Gershwin Initiative at University of Michigan,” Kim says, noting that the new edition draws upon Gershwin’s notes and his recorded performances. “This version is historically and practically an enhancement and an improvement.”

Kim, who has won the Liszt-Garrison Competition’s Liszt Award and other prizes, oversees the Emerson/Harris Program at MIT, which presents music scholarships and fellowships to nearly 70 students each year for private chamber music instruction. She says working at MIT is “a teacher’s dream.”

“The students are infinitely curious and bring a certain kind of joy to interpreting difficult music that I find so refreshing,” she says. “They are extremely dedicated.”

Kim understands dedication. She started playing the piano at three and by nine was practicing three to four hours every day. Raised in the Midwest, she frequently traveled long distances for lessons and competitions and credits her parents for their dedicated support for her musical endeavors— something she sees at MIT as well, both from parents and teachers. “That’s the jet fuel that keeps our talented students here at MIT going,” she says.

When it came time for college, however, Kim wanted to study something besides piano. She chose to major in history at Columbia University, earning her degree in 2011 while simultaneously studying piano at Julliard through the Barnard-Columbia-Juilliard Exchange. “I think my personal background was very helpful in getting hired at MIT because I was that student who came and wanted to continue academics in another field and piano at a high level,” she says.

Kim earned master’s and doctoral degrees in music from the University of Michigan, then joined MTA in the fall of 2022. In addition to teaching, Kim recently launched an interdisciplinary study on the biomechanics of piano playing with Praneeth Namburi PhD '16, a research scientist at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. “We’re looking at pianists like elite athletes and seeing what they can do with their bodies,” she says. 

“This research can reveal insights that could transform how we understand and teach piano technique, reduce performance-related injuries, and bridge the gap between artistic expression and biomechanical efficiency,” she says.

Kim also performs regularly, both at MIT and on stages across the United States, Europe, and Asia. She says she is “thrilled to be soloing with the Boston Pops”—particularly given the opportunity to perform the new edition of the Concerto in F. “Gershwin made this concerto into a really grand piece,” she says.

After performing the first movement at Tech Night, Kim is scheduled to play the full concerto with the MIT Symphony Orchestra on Oct. 23 during Family Weekend.