Jihyun Kim currently holds the position of Visiting Assistant Professor in Composition at Oberlin Conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio.  Her Doctorate in Composition is from Cornell University, and she also holds a master’s degree in music from Indiana University.  Her Bachelor’s degree is from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.  She has earned numerous awards for her compositions including the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award and the ISCM Composers Competition.  

“A Tramp in the Assembly Line” was composed in 2015 in fulfillment of her master’s thesis from Indiana University.  It is a reaction to the movie, Modern Times (1936) starring Charlie Chaplin.  Chaplin’s often-used character, “the Tramp,” struggles with the modern factory assembly line in a manufacturing firm and consequences of trying to live in the depression of the 1930s.  In the work, Kim doesn’t portray specific scenes from the movie, but instead tries to share her perceptions of various parts of the movie such as the conveyor belt and the large pulsating wheel used to drive everything in the building.