UCSC is a very exciting place to be. It has such a good
mix of cultures. We are an active, growing department
with a diversity of interests that are very complementary.
Like any other composer, Hi Kyung Kim often sits at the piano to conceive
a new piece of music. As much as she enjoys the piano, the South Koreanborn
maestro often finds her inspiration from the traditional Korean instruments
of her childhood.
"When I compose I hear very delicate tone colors and sounds, something you also find a lot in Korean music," says Kim.
Kim emigrated to California with her family in 1980 to attend graduate school. Even as a student, she stood out as a forceful composer. When her piece Intrigues premiered with the San Francisco Symphony in the late 1980s, critics raved, and one noted that Kim was "firmly in command of her artistic voice."
Since then Kim has won a succession of eminent awards, prizes, and fellowships; attracted numerous commissions; and seen her work performed by dozens of respected ensembles, including the Cabrillo Music Festival orchestra, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and members of the Tanglewood music center orchestra.
But Kim didn't always feel in touch with the voice that critics now find so striking.
As a doctoral student at UC Berkeley, Kim accepted a prestigious prize that took her to the Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/ Musique (IRCAM) in Paris; while there she experienced extreme culture shock. The cultural differences extended to the classroom where Kim learned that European approaches to music are quite different from those she'd learned in America.
"The students and teachers were discouraging," Kim remembers. "They told me I was writing American music. I was shocked. I thought I was writing my music."
She struggled to assimilate new approaches and found herself blocked
and frustrated. She eventually got back on track with some simple advice
from the
director of the school--he told her to just be herself. Kim took his words
to heart and, returning to her roots, rediscovered her trademark style that
incorporates both Western and Korean aesthetics and techniques.
Since 1992, when she came to UCSC, local audiences have been beneficiaries of Kim's talent and energy. Not only has she given a number of solo performances, in 1996 Kim organized the critically acclaimed Pacific Rim Festival of Contemporary Music. The festival, which also toured to UC Davis and UC Berkeley, brought together 24 world-class composers from California, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, and China, four Bay Area ensembles, and numerous individual performers from the region.
Kim found support for that ambitious project from her UCSC colleagues, many of whom participated. "UCSC is a very exciting place to be," she observes. "It has such a good mix of cultures. We are an active, growing department with a diversity of interests that are very complementary."
Kim is also glad to be at UCSC because she can pursue her other passion--teaching. She first taught music in a Seoul high school, just after she finished undergraduate study. But, she says, "I quit after a year because I was afraid I liked it too much. If I didn't leave then, I might have stayed forever." Determined to finish her music studies, Kim reluctantly resigned.
"I feel lucky to be able to give back what I got. I was very much inspired by my teachers, and now I see the students' progress and it means so much to me."
Barbara McKenna