Kim Angelis

In the best of Gypsy fashion, Kim Angelis can change before your eyes. This internationally acclaimed composer and violin virtuoso is often described as “transforming herself from a soft-spoken, modest and spiritual person into a wild creature of the violin with flying skirts and hair, a few broken bowstrings and stomping heals. She is the composer and performer of an international range of pieces written for specific stories and, like Vivaldi, paints the story with surprising color and detail. While her roots are from the University of California, Irvine, her violin plays like Paganini.” (Clancy Hughes, Inflection Point)

You may have heard the passionate, gypsy-inspired music of Kim Angelis on network TV, PBS, NPR, or during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, when world champion gymnast Kui Yuanyuan of China used music by Kim Angelis for her floor exercise. NBC gave Kui Yuanyuan’s performance prime-time coverage, exposing Kim’s music to the “world’s largest audience.” The independent film, “Sweet Nothings,” released in February 2001, exclusively features music by Kim Angelis, which was nominated for Best Original Score by the California Independent Film Society. The same film was also nominated for Best Score by the International Independent Film Tour. Her 1996 CD, “Esperanza,” was selected as a Choice Recording by prestigious Strings magazine, and it received a nomination by Just Plain Folks for Best Instrumental Album. Kim’s most recent CD, “Gypsy’s Odyssey,” has increased her international fan base with radio airplay in Europe and Australia. This same CD has made “Top Ten” lists in places as diverse as Santa Cruz, Calif., and Herford, Germany.

Kim Angelis has enthralled concert audiences from Ancud, Chile, to Alaska and over the seas to Asia with her dazzling virtuosity and exuberant stage presence. Some of the violinist’s most memorable experiences took place on foreign soil. Kim treasures her two concert tours of Taiwan – replete with humorous situations – that culminated in multiple-encore appearances at Taipei’s prestigious National Concert Hall. A pair of extended concert engagements in Chile, which included performances at universities, galleries, and the spectacular Palacio Vergado, provided fertile ground for the composer’s imagination.

Kim Angelis majored in music at the University of California, Irvine, where she studied with the best violinists in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, including concertmaster Sidney Harth and Ivan Galamian-protegee Lori Ulanova. She won every available scholarship, and was featured soloist with the UCI Symphony, performing major works by Vivaldi and Saint-Saens. After graduating Magna Cum Laude, the violinist met and later married guitarist Josef Gault, who accompanies her at every concert. Beautiful, historic Astoria, Ore., is the place Kim Angelis calls home – it is the rich source of her serenity and inspiration. Here she and Josef are restoring a classic 1918 Craftsman bungalow, which they share with their beloved collie, “Holly.” Kim’s Christian faith plays a major role in her life.

But is Kim Angelis a chameleon? You decide. “Kim IS her music! Tuck a violin under her chin and this otherwise slight and shy artist becomes a powerful, scintillating dancing presence, somewhere on the continuum between the spirituality of a fiddler on the roof and the ecstatic mysticism of a Sufi dancing.” (Len Atkins, Sou’westerings)