Ji-Young Lim, First Prize Winner Queen Elisabeth Competition 2015

June 9, 2015, 8:03 AM · Modest, focussed and extremely happy, Ji-Young Lim, the First Prize Winner at the recent Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition 2015 is preparing for a series of post-competition concerts including the Laureates concerts next week.

The 20-year-old violinist prefers music to the limelight, the practice room to the media circuit. Often repeating, "I really worked hard to get here…" she is slowly adjusting to her success.

Along the path to the QEIMC, Ms. Lim won prizes at many Korean competitions, and top awards at the Euroasia Competition, the Henri Marteau Competition and the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis 2014.

Disbelief and joy characterize the young violinist's responses to the barrage of questions posed by multilingual journalists just after she won the QEIMC.

"I am so happy but I can not recognize that this has happened, I never expected to have won this competition. It is a dream and hard to recognize. I keep thinking, this is not true, maybe I should wake up!"

Exclusively trained in South Korea, Ji Young Lim was a Pre-College student at the Korea National University before entering the highly competitive program at that institution under the tutelage of the eminent, Nam-Yun Kim, who served as a jury member at the Queen Elisabeth Competition 2015.

The Nippon Foundation loans the "Huggins" Strad to QEIMC Violin Competition winners. The soft-spoken winner could hardly contain her gratitude, "Now that I have received the violin, I know this is all real."