SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Violinist plays like a pro

The virtuoso has Youngstown connections, her grandparents.
By ROBERT L. ROLLIN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
GREENVILLE, Pa. -- The Greenville Symphony Orchestra's opening night sparkled with the appearance of young virtuoso violinist Ariana Kim.
She performed two important contrasting works from the concert repertoire Saturday: the Brahms Violin Concerto and the Saint-Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.
The Brahms, a massive, rhapsodic piece, one of the most formidable in the traditional violin concerto genre, poses many challenges to the most seasoned soloist, yet Miss Kim performed it with passion and & eacute;lan.
She negotiated the formidable first movement, characterized by a dark and bipolar mercurial moodiness, beautifully.
She showed great poise and pacing in the powerful second theme, replete with many forceful double and triple stops, and tossed off the cadenza with appropriate drive, yet never once wavered from a steady delivery and clear and gracefully paced phrasing.
After a fine oboe solo, Kim's second movement performance had soaring lyrical lines and continued low-register beauty. The third movement, energetic and vivacious, has a rustic Hungarian-Gypsy roughness that allowed Kim to capitalize on her wonderful low register. Her rhythm and vigor in the cadenza helped culminate a marvelous performance.
Maestro Michael Gelfand maintained ensemble and pacing, helping to make this rendition a memorable one.
Perfect vehicle
The Saint-Saens, more a virtuoso display piece, was the perfect vehicle to lighten the proceedings. Kim had a luminous and tuneful phrasing in the Introduction, moving immediately into the energetic and expressive Allegro with gorgeous agility, scintillating arpeggios, and great rhythmic control -- all in all, a spirited and credible performance. The orchestra accompanied her effectively.
Kim has strong Youngstown connections. Her grandfather, the late Dr. Mark Walker, a successful composer, brought high standards to the theory-composition area at the Dana School of Music. Her grandmother, Kathryn Walker, retired principal second with the Youngstown Symphony, continues to provide top-notch violin instruction to young musicians in Boardman.
Kim is in her early twenties, yet during her residency played a wonderful violin chamber recital at Dana, gave an extended master class and will remain in town to play a children's concert with Greenville next week.
Her energy seems boundless, and her ability to teach and her expressive playing point to a wonderful professional career.
Rest of performance
The rest of the evening included a workmanlike performance of Mozart's Fortieth Symphony, first movement, in which conductor Gelfand appropriately brought out accents and nuances.
Brahms Fourth Symphony last movement, with its famous second theme, often used for college alma maters, was well executed, though problems with the horns and an occasionally plodding tempo marred the proceedings a bit.
The balance of the program was light music: a good performance of the Sousa Washington Post March, Danny Elfman's Spiderman film music as orchestrated by John Wasson, and a military march quodlibet that served as an encore.