Reina Shim is a 14-year old flutist in the 8th grade at Pioneer Middle School in Frisco. She started learning the flute when she was 7 and has been with flute teacher, Mrs. Monica Song for 3 years. This is only the second time Reina has entered the Collin County Young Artist Competition. She won 1st Place in the Junior Division Winds in 2019 as a 5th grader. That same year, she performed at Carnegie Hall at age 11 in the Concert Artists Virtuoso Competition Winners Concert as a Grand Prize Winner. Reina has won many awards including 3 times at both the Dallas Symphonic Festival (1st Place) and the Texas Flute Society Competitions (Outstanding Performance Award). In 2019, she was a Gold Medal Young Artist Division winner at the Manhattan International Competition and also won 1st Place in the Elementary Division of the Claire Johnson Flute Soloist Competition. In 2020, she was awarded 1st Place in the Junior Division at the Vernell Gregg Competition in Lewisville and was interviewed by Alex Amsel as a semi-finalist in the 2020 Fort Worth Symphony’s Young Artist Competition. Starting in 2020, she entered national and international competitions and won awards in her age division at the San Francisco Flute Society’s Flute by the Sea International Competition, Music Competition Online (England), Rising Stars Grand Prix International Music Competition in Berlin, the Dutch International Flute Competition (Amsterdam), and was a Finalist at the Tokyo International Flute Auditions. In 2021, she was named Outstanding Junior Performer at the Galway Flute Festival and was also invited to be a recitalist at the Basically Beethoven Festival streamed on YouTube and WRR 101 FM radio.
When Reina was a first grader in Korea, she wanted to learn to play the cello. But the cello teacher was gone for 2 weeks so she had to watch her twin brother, Ryan learn to play the flute. Reina studied the piano for a year but the shininess of the flute caught her attention. Once she started playing the flute, she fell in love with it. Meanwhile, her brother decided to switch from flute to clarinet. Reina practices flute 3 hours each day and also learned to play piccolo two years ago. She relaxes by drawing, watching Netflix and movies, skating, and playing tennis. Her favorite school activities are National Junior Honor Society and Band-Aide where she helps teach flute to 6th graders.
Reina has been in the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra (GDYO) for 3 years and was one of the youngest flute players. She performed a concerto with the GDYO Philharmonic and GDYO Orchestra after winning their concerto competitions. She was also interviewed on CBS in February for the GDYO’s 50th Anniversary as one of their top performers. With all these awards, this will be the first time for Reina to perform with a professional orchestra like the Plano Symphony. She and her parents, Jihoon Shim and Soojung Yoo are very excited about this opportunity and are looking forward to her performance. Reina aspires to become a professional flutist to bring the love of music to everyone.