There’s a lot more to being a concertmaster than simply stepping onstage at the beginning of a concert to take a bow and ceremoniously lead the orchestra’s tuning.
Just ask YuMi Hwang-Williams, who has served in the lead violin position with the Colorado Symphony since 2000-01, becoming one of Denver’s best-known classical musicians along the way.
In addition to setting the coordinated bowing strokes for the violin section and other technical duties, she sees a concertmaster as an important liaison between the musicians and conductor and an ambassador to the local community and world at large.
“When I have the wonderful opportunity to solo elsewhere or play chamber music elsewhere,” she said, “it’s like wearing a badge: ‘I’m concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony.’ It shows up in all my bios, and any time I meet anyone – patrons or somebody off the street – I explain to them that I’m concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony.”
An added perquisite to the job is the chance each season to perform as a soloist with the orchestra. Her appearance this year in that role comes today and Saturday when she takes center stage for Antonin Dvorak’s Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53.
Becoming a concertmaster was the last thing on Hwang- Williams mind when she began studies at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age 15.
After moving with her family to the United States when she was 9, the Seoul, Korea, native began violin lessons in fifth grade, immediately at home with the instrument.
As graduation from Curtis approached in 1991, she had little idea what she wanted to do with her musical skills.
“While I was at Curtis, I was so dedicated to just growing as a musician and a violinist that I was very much thinking idealistically and not in any practical way,” she said.
While in school, she had performed with the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia. So after earning her bachelor’s degree, she fell into substituting essentially full time with the famed Philadelphia Orchestra, gaining valuable experience.
In 1995, she joined the Cincinnati Symphony as second principal violinist – the leader of the second-violin section. There she met Marin Alsop, a frequent guest conductor with the orchestra.
Alsop, then music director of the Colorado Symphony, invited her to serve as guest concertmaster in Denver for a week at the end of the 1997-98 season and then asked her to take the same position for the entirety of the 1998-99 season.
That year served as an audition for the job. But the orchestra took so long to make up its mind and appoint Hwang-Williams its permanent concertmaster that she had already returned to Cincinnati and agreed to resume her former position there in 1999-2000.
But the two orchestras were able to work out a kind of time-sharing agreement, so she began her concertmaster duties on a part-time basis and moved to Denver for the 2000-01 season.
She became good friends with Alsop, also serving as concertmaster of the orchestra the conductor leads each summer at the Cabrillo Music Festival in California. But Hwang-Williams said the transition from Alsop to her successor as music director, Jeffrey Kahane, was smooth.
Alsop stepped down at the end of the 2002-03 season, and Kahane didn’t take over until 2005-06, but the concertmaster said the void was ably filled in part by principal guest conductor Peter Oundjian.
Hwang-Williams believes the orchestra has made substantial artistic strides during her tenure and is on perhaps its firmest financial footing ever under Doug Adams, the organization’s president and chief executive, and its board.
“Marin is really responsible for bringing the Colorado Symphony from its infancy, really, to adulthood,” Hwang-Williams said. “And I would say I probably came in at its teenage years.
“What we got in Jeffrey was someone who saw us as a grown-up, so we could build from there without the history of growing pains.”
Hwang-Williams, who recently moved to a home in the foothills, said she would have little choice but to consider a job possibility if it fell in her lap. But she has no plans to move to some larger orchestra. Concertmaster positions come open rarely and are extemely difficult to land.
“And then you have to decide if you really want to have a change of lifestyle and live somewhere else,” she said. “The quality of life is really hard to beat. I’m grateful to be here and very happy.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
