George Kim Scholes has successfully pursued a variety of musical activities. His career has encompassed chamber music, pop-rock touring and recording, composing and arranging, solo classical performing, recordings for television and film, teaching, and orchestral playing.

Mr. Scholes first noticed the cello watching the Lawrence Welk Show with his family. Piano and cello lessons started at age five, and after rapidly advancing on both instruments, Kim was enchanted by chamber music. After a few turmoiled teenage years, he was drawn to New York by the eloquent and elegant playing of cellist Bernard Greenhouse of the original Beaux Arts Trio. Before actually graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, Kim unexpectedly won an audition to tour and record as a member of folk-rock artist Harry Chapin’s five member band playing the cello and keyboards. He performed in 200-250 cities a year worldwide, and recorded four albums on Elektra Records. He also composed the filmscore for the horror film “The Nesting”.

Returning to classical performance, and during post-graduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, Kim won the Concert Artists Guild Competition and the US Trust Artist Award. Appearances in recital and as concerto soloist throughout North American ensued. He also won an award for Excellence in Teaching in the Gregor Piatigorsky Artist Award Competition in Boston. This prize led to a position at M.I.T. as an instructor of cello and chamber music. Further appointments followed at the Hartt School of Music, University of Toronto, Longy School of Music, and at Chicago’s Roosevelt University. He has recorded on the Titanic, Summit and Cedille Records labels, among others. He had the good fortune to commence his orchestral career with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and is now Principal cellist of Opera Pacific and the Pasadena Pops, and a member of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Los Angeles. He is former principal cellist of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.