Violinist’s love of music grows

At 13, Chee-Yun Kim left Korea for the United States to solo with the New York Philharmonic

Like Madonna and Michelangelo, violinist Chee-Yun Kim is so utterly revered within and without her field that she is known throughout the world on a first-name basis. Just say "Chee-Yun" to someone who fiddles, and they will nod in approval. Outfits such as the San Francisco Examiner blurt out odes about her like, "so passionate and musically engaged as to leave a listener awestruck." Her recent recording of Penderecki's Violin Concerto No. 2 was "a performance of staggering virtuosity and musicality," slavered the American Record Guide.

Chee-Yun Violinist Chee-Yun performs with the Honolulu Symphony: Place: Blaisdell Concert Hall Time: 8 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Sunday Tickets: $12 to $65 Call: 792-2000

You get the idea? The girl can fiddle.

Chee-Yun is the youngest of four -- "two older sisters and a brother played piano, violin and violin, plus both Mom and Dad love classical music and that's the only kind of music I grew up listening to. I started with the piano. ... I wanted to catch up with my older sister, who had already been playing for six years and practiced till I fell asleep on the piano, which made Mom very concerned about my eyesight. I wanted to advance quicker by learning a whole book rather than a song a week!"

In the end she played piano only a few months. "Then my other sister (who played violin) used to cry every time she had to practice -- her dream was to become a ballerina -- so, out of sympathy, I took up the violin!"

Good move.

Chee-Yun won the Korean Times Competition Grand Prize at age 8 and left for the United States at 13 to solo with the New York Philharmonic. At 15 she performed with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center. In between she studied at Juilliard.

Chee-Yun has played with the symphonies and orchestras of Philadelphia, London, Toronto, Houston, Atlanta, St. Paul, Dallas, Oregon, Detroit, San Francisco, Rochester, Utah, Cincinnati, Haifa, Hong Kong, Braunschweig, Leipzig, St. Petersburg, Buffalo, Spoleto, Modesto, Bamberg, Bilbao and, of course, Seoul.

There are dozens of others, and only so many inches on a page.

"When I'm traveling for concerts, I rarely have enough time for sightseeing or anything like that," she says. "But when I have time, I like finding concert dresses, especially in shopping-friendly places like London, Paris or Italy. But mostly, I'm in my hotel room practicing."

It's been 10 years since she last performed with the Honolulu Symphony. On this visit she'll perform Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Opus 61, which the symphony will bookend with Bartok's "Dance Suite" and Rachmaninoff's "Symphonic Dance."

Live music is her forté, but Chee-Yun also has an impressive catalog of recordings, starting with her 1993 debut of virtuoso selections, right to the Penderecki and a crossover CD of opera, movie and Broadway melodies called "Sentimental Memories," which moved more than 20,000 copies just in Korea.

Coming up is a new recording teamed with pianist Akira Eguchi featuring Brahms and Strauss, plus, like every working classical musician this year, an all-Mozart disc, which will be the subject of a Korean documentary.

Busy girl, and not slacking off -- she performed at the White House for President Clinton, and a couple of years ago, Chee-Yun returned to Korea for the country's highest musical honor, the Nan Pa Award.

"It was tough for my husband since I travel all the time, but he has been patient and understands that I'm passionate about music and the more I do it, the more deeply I fall in love with it."