Pianist Lori Sims has performed in many cities around the globe, with a broad repertory running from Bach to, increasingly in mid-career, contemporary music. Sims is also a noted educator, teaching both at Western Michigan University and at festivals in North America and Europe. Sims was born in near Denver, Colorado, in the late 1960s. Both of her parents were pianists, and her first lessons came from them. As a teen, she took lessons at the University of Colorado from Larry Graham. Sims attended the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, studying with Leon Fleisher, earned a master's from the Yale University School of Music, working with Daniel Pollack and Claude Frank, and went on to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, under a two-year German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholarship, studying with Arie Vardi and receiving a Solistendiplom, or Artist Diploma. Sims won several prizes and awards, including, most prominently, the gold medal at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in 1998. That led to concerto performances with the NDR Symphony Orchestra (now the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra), the Israel Philharmonic, and the Utah Symphony. Her recital career has taken her through the U.S., including a 2000 debut at Alice Tully Hall, and to Europe and China. Sims is also a chamber music player, having performed with cellist Natalia Khoma and violinist Renata Artman Knific. Since 1997, she has been on the faculty of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and in 2003, she was named the John T. Bernhard Professor of Music there, becoming the holder of one of just 13 named chairs university-wide. Sims has recorded for MSR Classics (where she issued, with Knific, a recording of three of William Bolcom's sonatas for violin and piano), the TwoPianists label (for which she recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, in 2015), and Centaur, where she participated in the jazz-classical fusion project Impressions of Debussy in 2020. ~ James Manheim