Philly concertmaster comes home to open USC Symphony season

COLUMBIA, SC – September 10, 2012 – David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will return to the city he considers home to kick off the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra season. For the Thursday, Sept. 20 concert Mr. Kim will perform Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, one of the most popular violin concertos.

The orchestra will also perform the Symphony No. 4 in E minor by Johannes Brahms.

At 3 Kim began playing violin and several years later began studying with famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay. He and his mother would drive eight hours from the family’s home in Pennsylvania to New York for his lessons. When he was 8, the family moved to Columbia where his parents took jobs at USC. He and his mother flew to New York for lessons every other Saturday and a few years later Kim began making the trips on his own.

He quickly became known as Columbia’s musical wunderkind performing frequently around the city.

“The most important and meaningful years of my childhood were in Columbia,” said Kim who attended Caughman Road Elementary and Hopkins Middle schools. I had a great social life and the warmest memories. I keep in touch with friends I had in the seventh and eighth grade.

Kim received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School and in 1986 was the only American violinist to win a prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. After a decade working as a soloist with orchestras around the world, he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as concertmaster in 1999. He continues to perform as soloist and also teaches internationally. He arrives in Columbia after two weeks of teaching and performing in Japan. He lives outside Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.

When Donald Portnoy became Music Director of the USC Symphony Orchestra in 1986, “I immediately heard about this wonderful violinist who grew up here.” Kim was the soloist with the USC Symphony Orchestra for its first concert at the new Koger Center for the Arts in 1989. Since then he has returned every few years to perform with the orchestra, the last time in 2006.

“Every time he performs so many people come to see him and catch up,” Portnoy said.

Coming back to Columbia is always special.

“It’s so touching and means so much to me,” Kim said.

The Bruch is a perfect piece for a happy homecoming concert.

“The concerto is exciting, compact and accessible,” Kim says. “It’s tuneful, soulful and flashy.”

The concerto was completed in 1866 and considerably revised with the advice of violinist Joseph Joachim the following year. The first movement is unusual in that it is a prelude to the second movement.  The smooth march has a melody first taken by the flutes with the solo violin entering with a short cadenza. This repeats, serving as an introduction to the main portion of the movement which contains a strong first theme and a melodic and slower second theme. The orchestra flows into the second movement, connected by a single low note from the first violins.

The slow second movement is admired for its powerful melody, considered the heart of the concerto. The expansive themes presented by the violin are underscored by a constantly moving orchestra part, keeping the movement alive and helping it flow from one part to the next.

The final movement starts with a quiet but intense introduction that yields to the soloist’s exuberant dance-like theme. The second subject is an example of Romantic lyricism, a slower melody cutting into the movement several times before the upbeat dance theme returns. The piece ends with a huge accelerando, leading to a fiery finish.

The concert will open with Brahms’ Symphony No. 4. Completed in 1885, Brahms referred to it humorously as a few entr’actes and polkas which I happened to have lying about, but he was quite aware of what he had achieved in this work. His musicals friends and advisors didn’t like the symphony. They were especially put off by the final movement, written as a passacaglia that was seen as a throwback to the Baroque era. Eventually the austere and tragic symphony was judged to be the composer’s most modern work and a summing up of all he knew about composing for orchestra. It was also his final symphony.

The 2012 – 2013 season will be comprised of seven concerts – one more than in recent years – with no increase in season ticket prices. Among the soloists will be pianist and USC Associate Professor Marina Lomazov, rising violin star Zeyu Victor Li and the Brasil Guitar Duo, along with a Tribute to Richard Wagner on the 200th anniversary of his birth and a night of tunes from the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musicals.

For the full season visit http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/orchestra/

USC Symphony Orchestra, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 20. Koger Center for the Arts, Assembly and Greene streets, Columbia. Season tickets are $115 for the general public, $85 for USC faculty and staff and seniors, and $42 for students. Individual tickets are $25, $20 for seniors and USC faculty and staff, $8 for students. Call (803) 251-2222, go to http://capitoltickets.com/ or download a subscription form at http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/orchestra/schedule.html

More information about Mr. Kim can be found at his website http://davidkimviolin.com/