In preparation for her upcoming return, Evnin Rising Stars violinist Eunice Kim discusses her first meeting with Artistic Director of Evnin Rising Stars Pamela Frank, the physical and mental tolls of an intensive week of rehearsals, and the annual after-hours costume party.
My first encounter with Pam Frank is still vivid to my mind. I was ten years old when I performed in her masterclass at the Aspen Music Festival and School. I didn’t know what to expect, and I had spent most of the summer practicing Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2. As a young violinist, I was drilling the piece into the ground as I made sure that my passagework was as close to ‘perfection’ as possible and that my phrasing was correct. When I played for Pam, performing a piece on autopilot and staying in my comfort zone was absolutely not an option. She flew around me on stage. She was encouraging me to dance, creating colorful stories to go along with the music, poking fun at me, freeing me up, and doing just about anything she could to bridge that gap between the musical ideas in our head and expressing it directly to the audience.
[tout]Every night, I’d leave the Music Room with a whole new approach on my own limits as an artist as well as how I heard these works in my head.[/tout]
[tout]We all bond, create, and learn together in the no-judgement zone that Caramoor provides. [/tout]
This is exactly what Pam means when she says we are in a safe space. This is a special time of the year where we get to spend an entire week in a stunning Music Room with horrible cell service (which is great for focusing, by the way), knowing that we have the time and space to experiment all we want as artists and to dive as deep as we can into the music. We all bond, create, and learn together in the no-judgement zone that Caramoor provides.

Juggling five major chamber works in five days was demanding, both mentally and physically. I was most grateful for Howard Nelson, a devoted physical therapist and Pam’s other half, who sat in every single one of our rehearsals and coachings to study each of our postures and physical habits. He’d also quietly come up to the stage and remind us, “You’ve been sitting down and playing for half an hour now. This is a good time to get up and stretch for a minute.” This was major. Not only did I learn more about music and myself as a chamber musician, I took away a whole lot about my physicality when I played that I was not aware of.
I’m thrilled to be returning as an artist this year and cannot wait for all of the fun to begin!
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Saturday [slash] October 28 [slash] 8:00pm
Evnin Rising Stars I
Chamber, Classical [slash]Music Room
$15, $35 [slash] Free tickets for students 18 and under!
Haydn [slash] Mozart [slash] Prokofiev [slash] Schoenberg
[button href=”https://www.caramoor.org/events/evnin-rising-stars-october-28-2017/” target=”_blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]
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Sunday [slash] October 29 [slash] 3:00pm
Evnin Rising Stars II
Chamber, Classical [slash]Music Room
$15, $35 [slash] Free tickets for students 18 and under!
Haydn [slash] Mendelssohn [slash] Brahms
[button href=”https://www.caramoor.org/events/evnin-rising-stars-october-29-2017/” target=”_blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]
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