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From the Philadelphia Inquirer Weekend
Section Classical Music Orchestra Concertmaster David Kim is a
busy man Another
day, another debut By Charles Huckabee The debuts keep coming for David Kim. In his debut season as concertmaster of
the Philadelphia Orchestra, he has led the string sections and taken
violin solos in many orchestral pieces, and he will have his debut as a
featured soloist with the orchestra
in Bruch's Scottish
Fantasy this summer at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. Sunday afternoon, he'll make his debut
in the orchestra's chamber music series, performing in Dvorak's Piano
Quartet in E-flat major (Opus 87) with music director Wolfgang
Sawallisch at the keyboard and two friends and colleagues in the other
parts: the orchestra's principal violist, Roberto Diaz, and associate
principal cellist, Peter Stumpf. The program also includes two string
quartets, by Ligeti and Mendelssohn. Though Kim, 36, has performed chamber
music this season in New Hope with the Concordia Players, a group
organized by his friend Michelle Djokic, he says he has had to turn down
other opportunities because of his duties as concertmaster. "Everything was so new, and
everything was 20th-century," he said of the literature the
orchestra has performed this season. "I've only started orchestral
playing, so I've been busy learning music every week. It doesn't take
much -- going to somebody's house for dinner on a Sunday night -- to
totally disrupt my schedule. Chamber music, though, has always been
an important part of his life and career.
For five years, he performed in a string trio with Diaz and
Diaz's brother Andre, a cellist. Eleven
years ago, he founded a chamber music festival at Kingsport, R.I., which
he still runs. He'll be there this summer in between stints with the
orchestra and the Mann and Saratoga, N.Y Guests at his festival have included
friends like the Diazes and old classmates such as Djokic, a cellist;
violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg; pianist Andrew Litton, music
director of the Dallas Symphony; and Evan Wilson, principal violist of
the Los Angeles Philharmonic. (That "class, by the way, would be
the precollege and college divisions of the Juilliard School of Music in
New York in the 1970s and 1980s.) "They come because they're old
friends, and because we love each other and love getting together, Kim
said by telephone from Ohio, where he and his wife, Jane, were visiting
her parents last weekend. ''I'm very proud of what I've done in
Rhode Island," he said, adding that one of the most satisfying
parts has been seeing friends go on to start series of their own. Djokic, who has worked and performed
with Kim since the Rhode Island festival's first year, credits him as a
motivator in her founding of the New Hope group three years ago. "I've learned so much from
David," Djokic said this week from her home in Connecticut. Whether
working with the board or the musicians, she said, "he brings
people together in an easy ways. He's always so elegant with the way he
deals with everyone. In rehearsals, he's as pleasant as can be. When he
wants something played a certain way, he suggests it by example. And I
usually have to agree he's right. I've never seen him upset
anyone." She also credits Kim with "great
support" of her Concordia Players series. "He's played on
almost every
concert we've
done," she said, including one two weeks ago in which Kim performed
as a soloist in Each's Sonata No. 2 in A minor; ;and in the Ravel Piano
Trio and the Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor. Remind Kim of a performance with the
Concordia Players earlier this year of the Arensky Piano Trio in D
minor, and you can sense the blush at the other end of the line as he
hastens to take responsibility for a misstep noted in a review. When he
launched the second movement, his partners, Djokic and pianist Gall Niwa,
were not with him. "I started without making sure everyone was
ready," he said, "and of course we had a train wreck and had
to start over" -- but not before Kim was heard to say to his
colleagues "Are we all ready?" "I was completely joking," he
insisted. Djokic laughed and explained further:
"David did something he never does. He started without Gail. I
looked around and saw the look on her face, and I stopped playing. But
I'm glad it went that way because we started again, and it went
perfectly. "David is a person of such
goodwill, the Philadelphia Orchestra is blessed to have him." For his part, Kim seems happy to be
here. After renting during his first, "probationary" season,
he and his wife have just bought a house in Bryn Mawr. And there's at
least one more debut in their future: They expect their first child in
October. Charles Huckabee's e-mail address is chuckabee@phillynews.com The Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber
Music Series, with Wolfgang Sawallisch, piano; David Kim, Yayoi Numazawa,
Hirono Oka, and Yumi Ninomiya Scott, violin; Choong-Jin Chang, Roberto
Diaz and David Nicastro, viola; Ohad Bar-David and Peter Stumpf, cello;
at the Academy of Music Ballroom, Broad and Locust Streets, at 3 p.m.
Sunday. Tickets: $18. Phone: 215-893-1999. |