Richard Inkyu Kim (viola/violin) is an experienced chamber, orchestral, and free improvisation performer. He was a two-year member of Ann Arbor's Creative Arts Orchestra, a free-improvising ensemble for musicians, actors, dancers, and poets. As a member of that ensemble, he performed with New York artists Tim Berne and Michael Formanek and participated in a master class with Holland's Willem Breuker Collective. He currently teaches free improvisation and improvises in the San Francisco Bay Area, including interdisciplinary work with actors and dancers.

He is also a trained conductor, with a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Michigan School of Music, where he studied with Kenneth Kiesler. There he served as Assistant Conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra, the Campus Symphony Orchestra, and the Campus Philharmonia Orchestra, and conducted all four of the university's major orchestras.

As a conductor and instrumentalist, Richard Inkyu Kim is a proponent of new music, and has premiered several compositions, including Stephanie Johnson's mix7.6 and Kevin March's Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra.

In addition to his work in orchestral conducting, he has studied choral conducting with Theodore Morrison and Marguerite Brooks and participated in conducting workshops with Gunther Schuller and Robert Page. He has studied composition with James Aikman and Michael Tenzer, orchestration with Bright Sheng, viola with James Pryzgocki and Jesse Levine, and voice with Rebekah Nye.