Violinist David Kim is thankful for the occupation he says a colleague calls "the job that keeps on giving." Even if it has a "dumb title." Kim is the concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, but also does a number of performances as a soloist, as he will Saturday with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra. And he is quick to laugh about the irony in that situation. From the age of 3, Kim was educated to become a solo violinist, but that job never was too easy until he got a job in an orchestral section. "It's so much easier to get concerts now that I have this dumb title," says Kim, who has been concertmaster in Philadelphia since 1999. The job with the orchestra probably makes his solo performances easier because he is aware of what is also going on in the ensemble, suggests Kypros Markou, music director of the Westmoreland orchestra. "I think it broadens his perspective," he says, adding it will make it easy to put the program together with Kim. "You just look at those credentials. I can't remember a case where a musician came in with good will and good talent and it didn't work." But Kim's mother was not interested in him working with an orchestra -- in any other sense that as a guest. Kim says his late mother, Bong Hi, decided sometime around his birth that he would be a violin soloist. She was a pianist and college-level music teacher and, obviously, had a fondness for the art. He was born in Carbondale, Ill., and started taking lessons at 3. But it was a little more serious than the lessons most kids get. "I was practicing five or six hours a day by the time I was 7," Kim says. "That was to the elimination of other things, such as bicycling or swimming. There was some danger there, sure, but she saw it as just a waste of time. "Heck, I think she thought sleeping was a waste of time." The concentration of violin training was the focus of family life, he says. Vacations and fancy cars and houses were avoided to fuel Kim's studies. The biggest, steady time that resembled family outings was spent in trips to New York City so Kim could take lessons with famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay. The family moved around as Kim's mother and father, Chai, a professor of business, moved through a variety of teaching jobs. There was time spent in Clairon, Clarion County, and in Buffalo, where the lessons required weekend drives to Gotham. A stint in South Carolina called for flights to the city. But Kim, 42, remembers them now as good moments and says "it never crossed my mind" to try to get away from his music. He eventually studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City and started his career as a soloist. It wasn't easy, he admits, even if he did rack up prizes at events such as the 1986 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. "I never spent much time at the A level," he says. "I got glimpses of it occasionally with jobs in Dallas or Washington, but most of my time was spent in places like Dubois." As he led his life as a soloist, his wife, Jane, a business graduate at Ohio State University, worked full-time with firms such as Price-Waterhouse, the accounting firm, he says. There was irony there, too, he points out. He was playing golf several times a week while being supported by Jane, who was a competitive golfer at Ohio State. He finally had a "moment of epiphany" about 10 years ago were he realized his solo pursuit was not going to get better. It was time to join an orchestra. He first won a position as associate concertmaster with the Dallas Symphony and then became concertmaster in Philadelphia in 1999. Besides that job, he has stayed busy doing master classes at places such as the Manhattan School of Music and running the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, which he founded in 1989 in the Rhode Island city. Adding those various aspects of work may make Kim's life busier, but he says life on the road now is better than his days as a wanna-be star, "It's refreshing to get out," he says. Music showcased Kypros Markou says this opening concert of the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra performs an important musical job in two ways. It is focusing attention on a new performer and on some music that may not be as familiar as other pieces, says the ensemble's music director. The concert will be a stage for David Kim, the concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, who will perform the violin concerto in D minor by Jean Sibelius. Along with Carl Maria von Weber's "Euryanthe" overture, the orchestra also will play Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 7. "It is a great work," Markou says of the symphony, "but it gets overshadowed by the eighth and, of course, the ninth." That latter example, of course, has the famous subtitle: "the New World." "Maybe he should have come up with a good nickname for it," Markou adds about the seventh with a laugh. "The 'Old World' or something." Additional Information:

Details

Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra When: 8 p.m. Saturday Admission: $10, $18, $25, $38, with student rush tickets at $5 Where: The Palace Theatre, Greensburg A pre-concert lecture will take place at 7 p.m. Details: 724-837-1850

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