Mariya Kim was born in Ukraine into a family of musicians. At the age of six she started to study the piano at the music school in Sevastopol, where she graduated in 1998 under her mother, Tatiana Kim. In 1998 she entered the Hanover Hochschule für Musik und Theater, studying under Vladimir Krainev and at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw under Piotr Paleczny. She has been a top prizewinner at many international piano competitions, including our competition. As a soloist she has performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic, Korean National Symphony Orchestra, Ukraine Philarmonic, Athens Symphony Orchestra, c among others.