Ariana Kim

Looking back at the last month, although my “plate overfloweth” in so many ways, there were such unforgettable and momentous events that it seemed to fly by, like watching a most beautiful bird…

At our final stop on our Knights “L’histoire” tour, we joined the brilliant John Heginbotham and a few of his Dartmouth dancers in a flash mob at the Baker-Berry Library in a choreographed (yep, us musicians too!) performance of Stockhausen/Shaw’s “Leo.”  From wearing music on our backs to crouching down on hands and knees, it was an interruptive moment for the ages!

I closed out October with some of my new favorite violinists and fiddlers; director Rick Manning put together the inaugural Ithaca Fiddle & Improv Workshop, which brought together violinists from all walks of the musical world.  Sara Caswell, a jazz genius, Duncan Wickel, a bluegrass, old time, and rock shredder, Joe d’Esposito, a chopping wizard, Susan Waterbury, my fabulous “sister from the other hill” and professor of violin at Ithaca College, and I made up the faculty for the workshop that ushered students through sessions in classical ornamentation, bluegrass tune-learnin’, bebop riffs, old time bowing techniques, practice techniques, and perfecting the chop.  We closed out the weekend with a down-home fly-by-the-seat show at the Carriage House that featured folk music from Bartok to Bill Monroe…

There aren’t many words I could find to express the sheer beauty of autumn in Ithaca; grateful for the Indian summer we just had and taking in the glory of the walk to my office along the Cornell Arts Quad…

And the album is DONE!  After nearly a year, I am a bit delirious and rather excited to announce that my first solo album, Routes of Evanescence: Music for Solo Violin & Violin + 1 is ready to drop!  My brilliant engineer and producer, Leszek Wojcik and I worked on the final edits as I completed the album artwork and liner notes — and here we go!  Pre-release begins 11/22 in Ithaca, and the album release tour continues to the Twin Cities and NYC on 12/6 and 12/17, respectively…

I am just now beginning to come down from the surreality that was this past Sunday — it was, without a doubt, the most meaningful and magical day of my life.

In honor of my father’s 70th birthday, with the help of our distinguished guest violist Nobuko Imai and many others, we presented him — in-between quintets by Mozart and Mendelssohn — with a special, monogrammed Japanese piñata, a surprise visit and performance with my brother Daniel (who secretly flew in from New York), four secret commissions written in honor of the occasion by John Harbison, Steve Heitzeg, Peter Child, and Stan Skrowaczewski, and concluded the celebration with the YNK SSO — the “Young-Nam Kim Secret Surprise Orchestra” — comprised of 29 of his current and former students performing the slow movement of Mozart’s final quartet all together on stage.  There were and still are no words to describe the emotions of the day; I leave you with the photos and videos below.

Just began a 3-part tour of Stravinsky’s “L’histoire du soldat” and a fabulous septet (written for the same instrumentation) by Stockhausen, arranged by Caroline Shaw.  After some lecture/demonstrations at several of Penn State’s classes, we performed on their Classical Coffeehouse and Performing Arts Series. Getting to know these iconic composers and these works in a new way is deeply inspiring (and sweat-inducing)…now it’s off to Washington D.C. to take the program to Dumbarton Oaks…hopefully the hurricane won’t sweep us away =)

I experienced one of the craziest and memorable nights last weekend — a benefit for Musicambia (a non-profit that brings music to U.S. prisons) — that was also a club-style dance party with a live band playing Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.”  Danced by GroupMuse members who were perplexingly familiar with the score, the hot and humid evening at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple gave way to savage, visceral, and glow-necklace-laden dancers making their way through this iconic piece of music.  The deafening screams of appreciation transitioned into audience members lying amidst the orchestra for an encore of Schoenberg’s “Farben” from his “Five Pieces for Orchestra.”  The sacrificial lamb survived…this time.

 

As I opened my office door at Cornell for the first time this year to welcome the Class of 2019 (yes, the incoming college freshman class was born in 1998…yowza), I couldn’t help but pause and look back at the wonderfully wall-to-wall summer of music making I just finished. Here are some highlights…

The summer began with a Knights tour of Germany and Austria (which concluded with a performance in the incomparable Musikverein), and unexpectedly continued onto Italy where I joined Brooklyn Rider and percussionist Ian Rosenbaum for an exhilarating concert at the American Academy in Rome featuring quartets by Andy Akiho and Paula Matthesun…

June brought our final concert of the 2015-2016 season with the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota featuring music by Paul Schoenfield, then the glory of Arvo Pärt’s double violin concerto, “Tabula Rasa” (which I had the pleasure of learning alongside the fabulous Tessa Lark), and a visit from my incredible parents, Ellen and Young-Nam (we had a lovely evening with two of my favorite ladies, Ieva and Alma, and even found time for a beach day!)…

July was packed with another Knights tour to the Ravinia Festival, serving on the faculty (for the first time – it was divine!) at the Crowden Music Center’s Summer Chamber Music Institute in Berkeley, CA (where I even had a bit of time to catch up with old friends and family), album editing (albeit at a glacial pace), a little “Spanish immersion” as The Knights explored a program of Latin music, and a couple of great birthday hangs…

August began with one of my favorite weeks of the year, PACO Camp! It’s an intensive chamber music festival out in the Redwood Forest in California where talented and dedicated Bay Area students come together to eat, sleep, and breathe quartets. With a few days off in-between to get some record editing done, it concluded with 8 special days up in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota for the Northern Lights Chamber Music Institute, where I played, coached, and made my “debut” as a “percussionist” playing a little cajon (whoa, boy) with the kids on Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghei’s “Ascending Bird”….

I said goodbye to summer with Labor Day weekend 2015 spent with two very dear friends, Larry and Trudy Rankin in Lakeland, FL; with an evening at the sea and a house concert to honor our beloved Corry Rankin, a classmate of mine who passed away in 2002, it was a beautifully powerful time of remembrance and fellowship.  I made my way back to Ithaca to finalize the details of having 71 violinists (!) on campus this year and hit the ground running with my fabulous new studio of fiddlers and chamber ensembles…

And here we go, off to the races for Fall 2015!

Love from 149th Street…

Ariana