Portrait of a young artist: Clara Kim

This semester, we in the Arts department are taking a nod from the Sports department in creating a special weekly column to highlight students on campus. We will be focusing on student artists and their talents. Our first portrait will be of Clara Kim, a second year student in Tufts-New England Conservatory double degree program.

Clara has played the violin since she was five and has been featured as a soloist in several orchestras including the Lexington Sinfonietta, the Merrimack Valley Philharmonic and her high school orchestra. She has also played at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and has been involved with various orchestras, orchestra tours and summer music festivals. She has received the Eugene Lehner Chamber Music Award and the DiDomenico scholarship. The Daily was able to obtain an interview (albeit via email) with this larger-than-life violinist.



Daily: What is your greatest musical moment?

Clara: I went with the Lexington Sinfonietta to a prison in Boston last year to play the solo violin part of Schindler's List. It was a connection... with a type of audience I've never had before.



Daily: What color inspires you to play?

Clara: Red. For me, it stands for passion for something beyond mere technicalities (of how-to abilities of playing violin).



Daily: When your conductor asks you how many hours you rehearsed for, do you tell the truth?

Clara: Never.



Daily: Which celebrity do you want to meet the most?

Clara: Alive? Maybe Britney Spears so I can ask her what the deal is. Dead? Beethoven. Definitely Beethoven.



Daily: Does the word "Neopolitan" do anything for you, musically?

Clara: Ew. Not particularly.



Daily: What movie made you think, laugh and cry all at the same time?

Clara: Monsters Inc.



Daily: When playing the violin, how do you do that voodoo, that you do, so well?

Clara: Voodoo? I wouldn't say voodoo as much as connecting with ideas larger than myself and expressing them. It's mostly intuition, you know, something like a "universal truth" or God that you find deep inside of yourself if you search enough. The hard part is finding the right ways to say what you want to say. It has to be internalized, I think. In any case, it's a process just like anything else, and you have to be patient with it.



If you know of a Tufts student artist who should be interviewed for this column, email DailyArts@hotmail.com.