Sunny Kim is a Korean-born vocalist, improviser, composer, and educator based in Australia. Drawing from her life journey as a global nomad - Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Denver, Boston, New York and now Melbourne - Sunny’s artistic practice seeks to find meaningful connections to people, culture, and place through a dedication to self-discovery, deep listening, and collaboration.
A two-time winner of Jazz People’s Magazine’s Reader’s Poll Awards in the Best Vocalist category (2012-13) and the recipient of the LIG Artist grant (2011), Sunny Kim has released five albums as a leader, Android Ascension (2008), Painter’s Eye (2012), The Shining Sea: Live at the Olympus Hall (2014), The Dream of the Earth (2016), and Tribute (2019), three of which have been nominated for the Korean Music Awards in the Best Jazz Record category. Sunny has recorded as a featured vocalist on numerous records such as After Dark (Prana Trio, 2005), White with Foam (MadLove, 2009), and Keep Your Heart Right (Roswell Rudd Quartet, 2007).
After completing her studies in jazz under the mentorship of Bob Moses, Jerry Bergonzi, Dominique Eade, Charlie Banacos, and Frank Carlberg at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Sunny went on to work closely with hundreds of improvising musicians from all over the world including luminaries such as Roswell Rudd, Ben Monder, Trevor Dunn, Ran Blake, Min Xiao-Fen, Pheeroan Aklaff, Gino Sitson, Darius Jones and Okkyung Lee. She has toured internationally and has performed at various venues around the world including the Carnegie Hall, Newport Jazz Festival (USA), Taichung Jazz Festival (Taiwan), ATP Festival (UK), Piacenza Jazz Festival (Italy), Jarasum Jazz Festival, Yeosu Expo (Korea), Barunga Festival, and the Arts Centre Melbourne (Australia).
Sunny has received grants from the Korea Arts Council to create various inter-disciplinary works with poets, dancers, and visual artists including large-scale performances, Act of Resolution (2011) and Diaspora (2012) with the contemporary dance company Mooe (Seoul) and Painter’s Eye (2012) with painter and poet Sun Doo Kim. Her composition “Everywhere” was featured in the soundtrack of the film Late Autumn (2010) by director Kim Tae-Yong.
As an educator, Sunny has facilitated hundreds of developing musicians from diverse backgrounds to find their creative voice through the cultivation of intuition, body awareness, and collaborative skills. Since 2007, Sunny has lectured at Hanyang University, Seoul Institute of the Arts, Soongshil University, and Dankuk University (Korea) and has led workshops at the Creative Music Intensive (Australia) as well as the Indigenous Songwriting Workshop at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada). A former Assistant Professor at Dong-Ah Institute for Media and Arts, Sunny currently lectures at the University of Melbourne in Jazz and Improvisation.
A frequent collaborator of the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO), Sunny has been working with two Yolngu manikay songmen, Daniel and David Wilfred, since 2017 in AAO’s Hand to Earth project. In 2020, Sunny was invited by the Australian Music Centre to present the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address.
