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Observer, Volume 16, Number 18, Thursday May 25 1995


Menuhin prize for student

Lisa Kim, a third-year violin performance major, has won the Laureate (first prize) in the senior division at the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, held 1 through 9 April in Folkestone, England. She won all three stages (or rounds) of the competition, sweeping past 20 international competitors who were selected from approximately 140 violinists through taped audition. Lord Yehudi Menuhin--the virtuoso violinist who serves as president of the competition--presented Kim with her Laureate award of £2,000 and Stage prize, for winning all three stages, of £3,000 (about $3,200 and $4,800, respectively). The awards presentation preceded a gala concert held on the last day of the competition, at which the laureates in the junior and senior divisions and the other finalists performed.

Professor of violin Almita Vamos attended the competition with Kim. Vamos said that Lord Menuhin told her: "Your students are marvelous . . . Lisa is marvelous. Her playing is so sensitive and refined." Another student of the Vamoses, Christina Castelli (who studies with them at the Music Center of the North Shore in Winnetka, Illinois, where they teach each weekend), made it to the second round of the senior division, placing fifth overall. The two Vamos students were the only United States representatives at the senior level of the competition.

Kim has performed with the Chicago Symphony, Waukegan Symphony and Samara Symphony Orchestras--the latter performance taking place in Russia--and, as a presidential arts scholar, she has performed in the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Kim has been a winner at the ARTS, Julius Stulberg, Illinois Young Performers, and St. Louis Symphony Scholarship competitions. She began violin study at the age of three with the Suzuki method. She switched to traditional pedagogy at the age of six and began studies with Almita and professor of viola and violin Roland Vamos when she was eight years old. She has also studied with Mark Zinger and Josef Gingold.


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