Cellist Thomas Lim (b. 2001) performs regularly across North America, Europe, and Asia. He made his solo debut at the age of 16 and has since appeared as a soloist with orchestra in works by Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, and Haydn. In 2019, he was named a National YoungArts Foundation Winner and has received numerous awards, including prizes at the Violons du Roy Concerto Competition, New England Conservatory Concerto Competition, Juilliard Concerto Competition, Columbia University Orchestra Concerto Competition, New York International Artists Association Cello Competition, MTAC VOCE Competition, Korea Times Music Competition, Montgomery Symphony Orchestra Blount-Slawson Young Artists' Competition, Lewisville Lake Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, and the Coeur d'Alene Concerto Competition.
An active chamber musician, Thomas has performed a wide-ranging repertoire spanning standard works and contemporary music. He has studied chamber music with artists such as Joel Krosnick, Kim Kashkashian, Itzhak Perlman, Robert McDonald, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, Ara Gregorian, Paul Katz, Joseph Lin, Jerome Lowenthal, Natasha Brofsky, Soovin Kim, Gilbert Kalish, David Finckel, Nicholas Mann, Daniel Phillips, and Patricia McCarty, as well as members of the Emerson, Juilliard, Tokyo, Borromeo, Orion, Cavani, American, Schumann, Formosa, Alexander, and Escher String Quartets.
He has performed under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Marin Alsop, John Adams, Andris Nelsons, Hugh Wolff, David Robertson, Jeffrey Milarsky, and Eric Jacobsen, in venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, David Geffen Hall, The Kennedy Center, and Jordan Hall.
Thomas has worked with cellists such as Lynn Harrell, Mischa Maisky, Frans Helmerson, Joel Krosnick, Hans Jørgen Jensen, Lluís Claret, and Clive Greensmith. He has participated in summer programs including the Perlman Music Program, Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Meadowmount School of Music, Orford Musique, Domaine Forget de Charlevoix, and the Cidnay IMS Academy and Festival, where he received first prize from Mischa Maisky.
He studied with Jonathan Koh at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Minja Hyun at Yonsei University in Seoul. Thomas holds a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Darrett Adkins and Natasha Brofsky. He completed his undergraduate studies through the Columbia–Juilliard joint program, earning a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Columbia College in Computer Science and Mathematics. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science, with a focus on Natural Language Processing, from Columbia University.
Thomas plays an Italian cello dating from circa 1750 and an English John Dodd bow. He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts.