Illustrating her musical journey and providing techniques for audition preparation, Nancy Kim, professional cellist and middle school 1996 alumna, conducted a music workshop on March 19 in the orchestra room.

“I thought Nancy’s workshop was great. She provided the performing students with great musical advice on their excerpts and gave the other students really wonderful advice about a career in music,” Orchestra and Jazz Band conductor Christopher Florio said.

Fourteen years ago, when Kim was in school, an orchestral program never existed; Kim agreed to visit the Upper School partly due to curiosity, after Florio assured that she will see “how much the community here has grown and how the music programs have become something really wonderful.”

While Kim is a tenured member of the Monterey Symphony and a member of several other acclaimed Northern Californian orchestras, she also teaches students in the Bay Area her discipline, the cello.

“I just love seeing when someone who’s working on a piece is very close to having a certain interpretation of it, and I really like facilitating its direction,” Kim said. “I enjoy seeing young performers improve and grow.”

Melody Huang (10), Sonya Huang (12), and Alumna Audrey Kwong (’07) each prepared one or two orchestral excerpts to render “mock-auditions” for Kim to critique. Some of her comments included the importance of “relishing even the little notes,” the color of sound, clarity, and maintaining a steady pulse throughout the piece.

“[Kim] mostly emphasized my [musical expression] and pointed out the spots I could change to better fit it or make it more understandable,” Melody said. “I think [her advice] really gave me a clearer sense of the structure of the excerpt.”

After the “mock-auditions,” Kim discussed her journey and then shared a portion of a documentary of the Philadelphia Philharmonic; this documentary, according to Kim, portrays “a wonderful reflection of what orchestra musicians go through and what they think and feel about the music that they play.”

Initially, Kim aspired to graduate out of Oberlin College in Ohio as purely an English major. After also enrolling in music in her second year, however, an inspirational teacher aided her in becoming more involved in the intricacies of the cello. For her Masters in orchestral performance, Kim attended the Manhattan School of Music in New York, an inspirational place completely enveloped in the arts, according to Kim.

“I’m a case-study [for the people whom] the music bug doesn’t bite till later on,” Kim said.

In retrospect, Kim believes that carving one’s future earlier on proves more beneficial. She recommends that aspiring musicians build a score library and gain familiarity with as many excerpts as possible for auditions. According to Kim, it is essential to hear feedback from friends, peers, and instructors. It is also important to self-critique by watching taped practices or by other means.

Since Kim started her mastery of the cello at age 10 (due to a lack of success with the violin and Suzuki method piano) and felt a connection with this four-stringed musical instrument, she was compelled to catch up to the level of her peers in her studio class, practicing as much as three to four hours a day.

For aspiring music majors such as Maddy Rao (10), Kim’s journey appears inspiring. She said, “For a lot of us, parents put pressure, saying, ‘There’s too much competition, so you’re never going to be good.’ But, it’s wonderful to see [instructors like Kim] who give you hope that if you really, really want to pursue music, you definitely can.”