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Mark your calendar with the NCMF Spring Concert on Saturday, March 8^th at St. Paul's, featuring the Roebling Piano Trio. Tickets on sale in February.

What is a normal career path for a young person in Newburyport? I’m guessing college and then a job, driving or taking the subway (walking, if you are lucky), and gradually moving up with the promise of a higher salary and more responsibilities. Perhaps for some, the plan is to start your own business, become partner, or get tenure. Either way, the general format holds whether working for a bank or as an assistant editor or in academia, whether you have a degree in marketing or mechanical engineering, radiology or graphic design. Not so, the classical musician. A degree in music, even from a school like Juilliard, leaves you staring into the abyss, diploma in hand.

Some go for an orchestral job, looking at possibly years of auditions, but with an impressive payoff. Base salary for a section violin in the Philadelphia Orchestra is $150,000 a year, working 20 hours of week with generous benefits, 10 weeks paid vacation, and a pension. Not a bad gig, and the collective musical satisfaction from playing some of the core repertoire in classical music – Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler! – can be deeply satisfying.

But this isn’t for everyone. For a string player (the winds have more opportunity for individual expression), your role in orchestra is to be the medium through which someone else - the conductor - can make his or her vision manifest. The orchestral player sacrifices artistic freedom for job security.

Those not in a major orchestra often wind up doing a patchwork of jobs, teaching in a music school or private studio or university. They’ll do lots of gigs: some fun stuff like Handel and Haydn Society or Boston Chamber Music Society, small regional orchestras and operas, Messiahs and Traviata, Pops concerts, Broadway musicals, weddings, studio work. They might have another job, a “real” job, with flexible hours – web-related or real estate. Some musicians specialize in historical performance practice, other may try cutting-edge contemporary music, or jazz or rock.

The life isn’t for everyone, but that lack of routine can actually be part of the allure. Your schedule is different every day and you can be on the road much of the year, seeing new places and eating strange foods. A violinist friend of mine didn’t bother with a permanent residence because he was gone nine months out of twelve – he just crashed at his sister’s house.

Out of school, many musicians try to start their own group. The great violinist and pedagogue Josef Gingold told me in high school "chamber music is the most rewarding musically and the least rewarding financially." He was right, but Hoo boy, the incredible music you get to play with beloved colleagues - in my book, this can't be beat.

‍Valerie Kim, violinist in the Roebling trio, is currently pursuing her doctoral degree (DMA) at Juilliard with Itzhak Perlman where she also earned her B.M. and M.M. She had a few minutes to spare for me between classes.

‍Where are you from?

‍V.K.: I grew up in San Diego, CA until I moved to New York City when I was twelve years old to study at Juilliard with Mr. Perlman.

‍What piece of non-classical music have you been listening to lately?

‍V.K.: Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together”

What would be your dream job if you weren’t a musician?‍

V.K.: I’d actually love to be a voice actor for an animated film like “Finding Nemo.”

What do you do to relax?

V.K.: Mostly eat, but journaling and reading do the trick sometimes, too.

‍Since you love to eat, what is your favorite food?

‍V.K.: That’s easy! My comfort food is Gamjatang (pork back-bone stew), a savory, spicy, incredibly aromatic Korean soup.

I’m excited to catch up more with Val and Zhu in person and hear “The Roeblings” live in March. Tickets go on sale in February.

‍David Yang, Artistic Director