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IMPROMPTU
Boram Kang
VIOLIN
THROWING CAUTION TO THE WIND
Boram Kang began playing violin at age five,
and she and her family moved to Silver Spring,
MD from Korea when she was 13. Once there,
Kang participated in the Montgomery County
Youth Orchestra (which she has occasionally
returned to as a coach), and her ties to the
music scene in the area run deep. She’s also
participated in the BSO’s OrchLab program in
Montgomery County for the last two years.
“When I first came to the U.S., I was in
Peabody Prep School, and my teacher here
was Leri Slutsky, a BSO second violinist,” says
Kang. “He passed away in 2006, but when I
first got the job with the BSO, I started in the
second violin section, so it would have been
nice to share that with him.”
Kang, now in her third season with the BSO, has
moved her way from second violin section
player to Acting Assistant Concertmaster.
“I took a number of internal auditions when
I arrived here … I was doing them constantly.”
Because of that, she’s been careful to limit
activities that could potentially result in injury.
“Sometimes I don’t even cut fruit before an
important performance! That’s why I have this
urge to do things that nobody expects of me.”
And as for snowboarding in the Maryland
area? “People have been saying that if
you start out skiing in the Rocky Mountains,
anything here will be disappointing,” she
laughs. “I’ve sort of forgotten exactly how
to do it, though, so I think I will try again
next winter. I like doing things that are
spontaneous, but at the same time, I have to
be careful just because of what I do.”
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Kang lived a little more dangerously while
residing in Denver from 2013 to 2015.
“Whenever we had the day off I would go up
to the mountain to snowboard. I had never
been snowboarding before I lived there,
but when you’re in Denver, you have to!
There were about 15 of us out there for
four straight days the first time I tried. It
was intense — we were snowboarding about
7 hours a day. After that, I got the hang of it
and it was a lot of fun.”