Abe Kim:

Welcome to the Korean American Perspectives podcast. This is Abraham Kim, your host for today’s episode.

It is truly an honor to have with us Jennifer Koh, Internationally-Acclaimed Violinist and Founder & Artistic Director of ARCO Collaborative. The mission of the ARCO Collaborative is to advocate for inclusivity in classical music. Founded by Jennifer, the organization commissions and produces new musical works that highlight artists of color and women composers in collaborations that bring forth stories previously unheard in Western art forms. 

To speak with her, I will be passing the mic to world-class classical pianist and music educator, Alpin Hong.

Together, our guests discuss Jennifer’s early experiences growing up in Chicago, her musical career as a professional soloist, and her life mission to advocate for more diversity and inclusivity in classical music. 

They will also delve further into how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the classical music community and Jennifer’s innovative music projects to promote her own Korean American story and other artists of color.

So sit back, relax and enjoy this conversation with Jennifer Koh.

Alpin Hong:

Good evening everyone. I’m Alpin Hong, and it is a privilege to be with you all tonight. I am honored to get the chance to speak with Jennifer Koh, one of the most prominent Korean American voices in classical music. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me today. You and I grew up in the Midwest and at exactly the same time even attending what was then the North Shore School of Music in the Chicago area together. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be the person you are today?

Jennifer Koh:

Well, first of all, thank you for that lovely introduction. And I want to thank Abe, and also, Jennifer Jonak. It’s really, it’s just been such a pleasure to get to know all of you guys. I’m so thrilled to realize that this Council for Korean Americans exists. It’s like the best thing ever. So I’m going to just start off. You’ll forgive me. This is kind of a new thing for me with the PowerPoint, but I’m just going to try to give you a little bit of an introduction to myself. So for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jennifer Koh and I’m a violinist and I’ve had the privilege to perform nationally and internationally for nearly 30 years. I made my debut at age 11 with the Chicago Symphony and launched into an international career after winning the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition when I was 17.

And since then, I’ve been regularly featured as soloist with major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, LA Phil, BBC Symphony, NHK, KBS, and I’ve had the fortune to collaborate with really great conductors, such as Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Christoph Eschenbach and halls and festivals including BBC Proms, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Mariinsky. I feel like I’m just listing things, but Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl, Tanglewood Festival, and I’ve released 16 solo records. So as you can see, I’ve been really, really fortunate to have the attention of the press and to have had the good luck to be lauded for my violin playing. But what I’m most grateful for is the attention that I have been able to garner for the larger mission in my life, which is to advocate for the presence and agency of underrepresented artists in classical music.

I’ve commissioned and premiered over a hundred musical works. And the majority of these works have been written by female composers and/or composers of color. And I’m so thrilled that that has been able to come forward. I’ve been able to amplify my life’s mission through ARCO Collaborative, a nonprofit arts organization that I founded that commissions, develops, and produces new musical works that highlight artists of color and female artists in classical music. Our most recent project, Alone Together, premiered 40 new works over 10 weeks in the beginning of the pandemic. And we were able to commission 20 young freelance artists. And recently the New York Times stated that it, remarkable as a musical feat, Alone Together also provides a much needed vision of the classical music industry, all but one of the younger composers are people of color, female, or non-binary. So all of us here, we might not have the ability to change the entire world or the political system or the entire country, but I believe that we can all imagine the world that we want to live in.

And I believe that we can actually build that world. And although I don’t have the power to change everything, I do have the power to change classical music. I realized that I needed to create an organization, ARCO Collaborative, in order to find this agency and have this agency to build this world where people of color can have voice and have their stories heard in music. So why am I an arts activist? And why do I fight for inclusivity in music when it would take so much less time and energy to just play another performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. And it’s because of this, this is where I honestly come from. My parents’ history is by extension my own history. And like many of you, I’m the daughter of Korean war refugees. My mother is originally from North Korea and she spent her early childhood walking down the peninsula of Korea through the war, witnessing violence and experiencing overwhelming fear and hunger.

And she finally ended up here in Busan as a refugee in this camp. So this history of the traumas of our parents and grandparents are passed to us. And I think ultimately they live within us. And those of you here who are ethnically Korean, likely had parents who grew up during the war, after all, in the end 20% of the Korean population was killed during the war. So when we speak about the Korean side of being Korean American, all of us here share this experience, but I also want to talk about the American side of being Korean American. So here in the U.S., Asian Americans are nearly invisible. We’re told that we’re not actually a minority group, which implies that we’re not even actually American. And we are only called a minority group when we are used as a weapon against black and brown people.

And we become a minority group under the heading “Model Minority”. And then we’re often told that we’re next in line to be white in America. But at the same time, we’re told that we are overrepresented in our fields. But with all of our overrepresentation, we’re not present in leadership positions and in classical music, less than 1% of Asians and Asian Americans combined are leaders in the field, which means that they are not present as executive directors or heads of artistic planning at any symphony orchestras or presenting arts centers. But the thing is, people still say that there’s too many of us invading classical music. So I wanted to play this short clip of my debut with the Chicago Symphony when I was 11. And you’ll see that I kind of look this part of the stereotype of the prodigy Asian American violinist. But while we’re playing this video, I would like you to look closer.

You’ll see that the majority of the orchestra is white and that the majority of the audience is white. And at this time that this concert happened, the executive director and heads of artistic planning at the Chicago Symphony were white. And because I’ve had the opportunity to continue being a soloist with the Chicago Symphony, I can tell you that the entire administration of the Chicago Symphony is still white. And yet here is a moment where I, as an Asian American and seen and heard, and then you’ll see my parents at the very end when they’re actually able to be seen as well. So this is just a small excerpt.

[Musical Clip]

Jennifer Koh:

So I just wanted to keep the video until you could see my parents. And as you can see, they’re surrounded in a sea of not Asian people. Okay. So my whole goal in my life is that I want us to be seen. And through ARCO Collaborative, I’ve created a number of projects. One of which is the New American Concerto Projects, which ask composers to write violin concertos that engage with social issues. So the first concerto written for this project was by Vijay Iyer. The name of the concerto is Trouble, which is a quote taken from civil rights activist Representative John Lewis. And it’s what he used to call good trouble. But the heart of the piece is really Vincent Chin. And the piece, this entire work is dedicated to Vincent Chin. And as you might know, Vincent Chin was a Chinese American man who was beaten to death in 1982 in Detroit by two white men who said that he was Japanese and accused him of stealing their jobs.

And they both worked in auto factories. And this is before hate crime legislation was passed in the United States. So these two men went, were able to get away with just, they were just fined and never served in prison. So this piece actually premiered in 2017, which is before the pandemic, before this China virus. And I asked Vijay to write a movement about Vincent Chin, because I wanted to bring forward our story as Asian Americans. And I wanted to bring forward the racism that we’ve all experienced in America. And I wanted to bring forward Vincent Chin because his death is seared into my memory as a child. So here’s just a tiny bit of this movement.

[Musical Clip]

Jennifer Koh:

Okay. So this performance was from the Ojai Festival. And I don’t know if you can, if you guys noticed, but you can see that again, the orchestra members and the conductor are white, as is the audience, as is all of the top tier management and administration of the festival, of the orchestra. But what’s interesting, right, is that I’m the soloist. So I’m essentially the center of the stage. And because of that, I am able to have the space and agency to speak about Vincent Chin through the music, but also in the program books, interviews, and press reviews. So I might not be in a leadership position in terms of administration, and there might not be Asian American presence or Korean American presence in administration and in leadership positions. But within my role as a soloist, I’m able to make space for us. So throughout my career, I’ve worked to be seen as a whole artist.

Asian Americans have often been assigned characters in classical music, and I am really allergic to and refuse to play those roles. They are the Chinese monkey, somebody that plays really fast, all the notes, but does not really understand music. I’m not the dragon lady, the scary woman that actually wants to say something nor the pure Lotus flower, nor the Asian prostitute as in Miss Saigon. So I’ve had to do quite a bit of work to push back against this model minority stereotype. It’s really harmful because it relegates us into the space of being the good, quiet worker with no room in our brains for any kind of creativity. So in some ways, simply existing within the classical music space is an act of defiance, but I want to do more. So here you see the slide. It’s the latest work that I’m creating called Everything That Rises Must Converge.

And I wanted to bring forward all of our stories as Korean Americans. And I wanted to create a work about us, about our families, about our backgrounds, about all of those things that live within all of us as Korean Americans. So this work is based on my mother’s story as a child refugee and an immigrant to the United States, as well as my own story as a Korean American. And there has never, literally never been a work of classical music that has been about Korean Americans. And there has definitely never been a work in classical music that has two creative partners, one who’s Korean American, and one who is African American. So my partner, creative partner, is Davone Tines, whose grandparents were both born as sharecroppers in Virginia. His grandparents as well, witnessed a great deal of violence. And in fact, there’s one scene in, so we’re taking archival recordings of our family’s voices.

And we have one point in this show where Davone’s grandmother talks about witnessing a lynching in her town. And I mean, it’s horrific, but I’ll just tell you in which they cut off his head. They lynched him first and they cut off his head and played soccer with his head. And there’s a moment because there’s this image of the tree and there’s the familial family tree in a way that we talk about. But then there’s also this history with lynching. And there’s a certain point in my mother’s testimony in which she talks about being in Pohang. And this was when there was mortar fire and there was fighting within that city. And she talks about after a particularly intense time of bombing, she looked up into the trees and just saw body parts raining down from the trees. So in some ways it’s surprising, but we do have a lot of similarities between the African American history and Korean American history. But ultimately, this is in a way, a story about how two people of color live in this white space of classical music. And it’s also about our own experiences as people of color. So this is my organization, ARCO Collaborative. We are commissioning and producing Everything That Rises Must Converge. So I just, if you want to know anything more about the organization, you can go to arcocollaborative.org. So I hope that wasn’t too much talking, but thank you for letting me speak.

Alpin Hong:

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Jennifer. That was such an incredible journey. Thank you for sharing that with us. While you were speaking, I was just thinking about your parents. And so much of our Korean American identity comes from our parents. I was just wondering if there was an event perhaps in childhood, you know, that inspired perhaps that part of youth that decided to diverge from this more traditional path of simply a soloist to chamber musician or an orchestral player? Ironically enough, today’s conversation was So You Want to Be a Violinist, right? And maybe there are some people tuning in that might be looking for practice tips or how to get into conservatory, but you’ve described to us a life’s journey that, through your violin playing and through that early musical influence, you have embarked upon this journey of change. Can you tell us maybe if there’s a moment or two in your earlier life that gave you that burning desire to diverge from the traditional path?

Jennifer Koh:

Well, I grew up, I know you also grew up outside of Chicago, but I grew up in a town that I think at the, it was almost like a farm town. And at the time it was pretty rural. It was very Republican. And I think we were the first family of color at all that had been in that town. So my experience as a child was that I used to get beaten up in school every single day. And I hated, I hated, I hated that. I hated, but you know, it’s difficult at that age because, you know, it was essentially like we were a bunch of aliens that landed. I think that’s how we were seen, that had just suddenly landed. So there wasn’t much place to find solace, but the place to find solace for me, was through music. So I was practicing a lot.

It was through reading. When I was younger, it was also in swim team ’cause I loved swimming, but mostly it was through this kind of, through music and the liberal arts through reading. And then I was fortunate enough to have amazing teachers and mentors along the way. I don’t think I would be in music at all, had it not been for my teachers and mentors because they believed in me way earlier than I ever believed in myself. I mean, we don’t have this history necessarily of our family being, we don’t, we’re not necessarily born into a family of musicians and that makes a huge difference. I’ve learned how to live as a musician, but when I first entered the business, I didn’t know how it works. So I’ve really learned every step along the way out of experience.

Alpin Hong:

Wonderful. You’ve pointed to your same teachers and people in your formative time influencing you and creating your identity. Did you encounter in the classical music world, you’ve described a lot of people that supported you, but what kind of challenges did you encounter along the way because of your identity?

Jennifer Koh:

Well, first of all, I should say that most of the people who supported me, I’m incredibly grateful to. But some of the huge challenges I came across was racism. I, even as an adult, I remembered a conductor saying to me, well, but how can you understand music, you’re Chinese? And I don’t, I don’t speak Chinese. I don’t understand Chinese music. So how would you ever understand my music? And he was actually, he was German and it was funny ’cause he had just conducted a Tchaikovsky symphony. I was like, oh, so you speak Russian. And you’ve been, you’ve grown up in Russia and yeah, so that happens all the time. The other thing I used to hear all the time when I was growing up was, oh, well you guys, you’re so great with the technique, but you don’t understand anything about music, right? And now that has turned into, well, you know, all those like Oriental musicians, they have great technique, but they don’t understand the music except for you.

Right. So that’s, and I always think, oh my God, I’ve heard that my entire life. So I think there’s a lot of stereotypes that we all need to push against. And I think, I hope that it’s possible. I mean my whole goal in life, and then also through this pandemic is to create an environment where people of color and people who have never had their stories heard, have the space to tell those stories, whether it’s musical, whether it’s about bringing somebody like Vincent Chin stuff to the consciousness of white America. Because my audiences, to be honest, I mean, I hope all of you guys here will come to all my concerts, but to be honest, the majority of my audiences are always white. There’s some artists that bring in primarily Asian audiences, there’s like Lang Lang for example, the pianist and the majority of his audience are actually Chinese American. So you do have certain artists that fit into ethnic groups, but that has not, that was never my experience.

Alpin Hong:

Okay. You’ve described this idea that classical music could make us more sociable and whole as a nation together. And this is one of the questions that has been posed by one of our guests that are watching today. How do you specifically see education and participation in classical music? Giving us to this goal of a more perfect union?

Jennifer Koh:

I think that the ideals of music are amazing. I think the process of being a musician teaches us a lot. So what is music? It’s really about listening to each other. Right? And if we had a better world, everyone would be listening to each other. And you know what I often say when I do education programs, what I say to kids actually being a musician. To be a great musician, 99.9% of what you do is you listen. That’s what makes you a great musician. It’s how you listen and your ability to listen. The 0.001% is your actual ability, physical ability on the instrument. So that’s the first thing. I think the other thing that I always found really valuable is that you have to be really honest with yourself. So part of that is of course seeing the positive aspects of yourself. But the other part of it is that you have to acknowledge the parts that aren’t good, right?

You can’t just play and be like, oh my God, that was perfect. That’s the most genius thing that’s ever happened. You really do need to be honest with yourself. So the only way that you get better is to actually use all of the tools that you do have to kind of overcome any kind of maybe weaknesses or struggles that you might have. And that’s an amazing metaphor for life, right? I mean, even right now, the pandemic, it sucks. It’s terrible. It was horrifying last year, last spring, I’m just remembering New York City. It was so terrifying and it was horrifying and it was absolutely tragic what had happened. And yet during that time and during this whole pandemic, all I keep thinking about is like, how do I help other people? Because it might, it’s definitely is not financially good for me ’cause I’ve lost all my work, right?

I’m not touring. Some things are happening. Some concerts are being streamed. For example, I recorded a recital for Aspen Music Festival, which streamed, I think last week. There’s another stream happening tomorrow, which is a premiere of Courtney Bryan’s concerto, which is part of the New American Concerto Project. And so there are a few things, but really, you know, I used to be on the road. I was doing maybe four, minimum of four nights a week, I was performing. So that’s really, really different now. But I still know that I’m lucky because my career will come back when this time is done. Right? So my stuff is postponed. It’s not canceled. It keeps getting postponed, like Everything That Rises, the project about my mom’s life that had originally been scheduled for premiere in April of 2020. Then it got pushed to this April, 2021. And then last month it was pushed to April of 2022. So it’s taking a while, but you know, I’m still fortunate because I got to still do creative work.

Alpin Hong:

Wonderful. One of the, I just wanted to circle back to this idea that we need diversity, equity, and inclusivity in classical music. And these issues have been buzzwords in our field for some time. Can you describe specifically what you think that diversity, equity, and inclusivity in classical music might look like?

Jennifer Koh:

So for me, again, it’s really about value systems, right? So in a sense, it’s how we listen. What is important when we do listen? How can we hear, you know, it’s the same thing about listening. And what I feel, for me it feels just so easy to have most of the composers I commission, I’m never exclusionary. So I do have one white man in my Alone Together project that was commissioned. We don’t like, you know. But everybody else, we’re women and people of color. And so I feel really proud of the fact that ARCO Collaborative is now seen as the leader in classical music, right? And being forward thinking. So even for Alone Together, the Library of Congress has asked us, because they want to archive the entire project. Going forward, I want to expand this Alone Together initiative by helping more freelance composers.

So we’ll be commissioning more freelance composers. And I would also like to bring funding to performing musicians, younger performing musicians. So the Library of Congress will be participating. We’re doing a partnership with them. For the commissions of some of the work, we’re connecting with the arts organization Young Arts to bring in our student body. Again, the emphasis being for ARCO Collaborative to bring forward girls, females, and kids of color. And then in order to continue creating a funding stream for the composers that we had commissioned last year for Alone Together, we are recording the entire project and that’s in partnership with Cedille Records. So the nice, the nice thing is that we’re seen as leaders and, you know, it was interesting cause you could see the classical music industry, everybody kind of followed our lead. So a bunch of organizations did exactly what we did, you know, several months later. But I think the most valuable thing to me was that we got to help. We had this amazing opportunity to help all of these artists for the next generation. And, but you know, at the same time it didn’t help me. I mean, I didn’t pay myself for those performances. I was donating my work so that we could help the next generation of artists.

Alpin Hong:

Excellent. You know, obviously the American media, classical media, has responded overwhelmingly positively to you. In your experience, how has the Korean American community responded to all these efforts to promote visibility?

Jennifer Koh:

So I’m assuming, I’m not going to speak for everyone in this webinar, but I am assuming that most of the Korean Americans that are here or the Asian Americans that are here, must have noticed in their fields that there’s very few leaders in their fields in executive positions, right. It’s kind of called the bamboo ceiling for us. And so we have the same problem in classical music. So the real bosses, the real gatekeepers, the reason I kept mentioning, look at the orchestra, look at the audience, is because everything, there is no diversity on top, right? But how do you create diversity for leadership positions in nonprofits? Right? It has to be, everything, executive directors are hired by the board. And so Korean Americans have not taken enough initiative to join arts boards. And if that were to happen, you would see a total change.

I mean, I understand that we can’t change every law firm. We can’t change every hospital, but we completely have the ability to change who’s executive leaders in the arts. And really what that is about is as a group, if you bring. So there’s this whole thing, I think the study was made in 2014 about the fact that you always need three people to gather on a board or any kind of group where you’re the minority. Because if there’s only one, they fight to be the majority. So if it’s white and male, they fight to seem as white and male as possible. If there’s only two people, they compete with each other to see who is more white and male, right? But if there’s three people, you actually have power. Right? And so I think what would be, really change the field of music is if there would be three Korean Americans that decided to join, to donate and join the board of an arts organization. You will, if you do that in a performing arts organization or in a classical music symphony organization, whatever, opera, you will immediately see a change.

There is no question. So if we really want to change the public presence, I mean, the fact that I’m like in terms of soloists, I, there’s not Korean Americans around me. Right? And so I feel really lonely here. So I want to ask all of you guys here, if you were to join arts boards, and you can really build a coalition and you will immediately see a change on your stages. And that means you’re going to not only see a change on your stages, but you’re going to see a change in community leadership of who can be Korean American or Asian American. And you’re also going to see a change in the communication of the community. Because these executive directors, these performing arts organizations, we all have relationships with the press, right? So you’re going to have these huge pictures in the press of Asian Americans, of Korean Americans in your community that you can be proud of, that we can all be proud of. Right? So I put those like little slides in the beginning because it was like when I was a kid, like the ultimate would have been, oh my God, I’m a New Yorker cartoon. And so this year I got to be a New Yorker cartoon then also a New York Times cartoon. So I know it might’ve seemed a little random that I just put those things on, but it was mostly ‘cause I was like, oh my God, I’m a cartoon.

But, so what I’m trying to say is that there are images like that. If we could have more Korean Americans that would change our entire community.

Alpin Hong:

Absolutely. I wanted to kind of discuss for a second about the distinction of say classical music and classic artistry to more popular genres like film and pop music where obviously we have knocked some incredible wins over the last couple years with the recognition in Hollywood of Parasite and then most recently Minari and of course the BTS and the takeover of K-pop in the popular realm. Classical music on the other side is seen as, and as opposed to the kind of the more liberal domain that pop culture and Hollywood must be, that classical music has traditionally been seen as a more conservative art form, right? Its audience skews a little bit older, this too conservative, oftentimes, and even the kind of what classic music training has been, at least for my parents, was kind of the ultimate expression of white European tradition. Like, you know, the ultimate intellectual and cultural achievement that we children could aspire to. How do you feel like we can change it and not only in classical music, but in maybe other relative, whether considered conservative spaces such as you described C-suites and boards of these organizations.

Jennifer Koh:

Yeah. So what’s interesting, you brought up BTS, right? And Minari. So BTS is actually just Korean Korean, right?

Alpin Hong:

Right.

Jennifer Koh:

So it’s not a band of Korean Americans that started in America. There’s no way that would’ve happened here. Just none. Right? So BTS is actually a Korean, like incredibly successful Korean band, but they are not Korean American. And in fact, if you look at the history of K-pop, a lot of the members of K-pop groups are Korean American. So they’re Americans, they have no space to be represented in America. So they go back to Korea to have any kind of, you know, to be in entertainment at all. And then people are like, oh my God, they speak English so well. It’s like, yeah, that’s ’cause they’re from the U.S., you know? And then, you know, you mentioned Minari and that was chosen as a foreign film.

Alpin Hong:

Right, right.

Jennifer Koh:

And so this idea of being perpetual foreigners, that we are never American. We’re not non-white Americans. You know, we’re always going to be foreign. I mean, that’s the essence of being invisible, right?

Alpin Hong:

I think you’ve, just to expose that idea, there was a question about, is there a myth that Asian Americans are overrepresented in the music industry? Because so many, so many of us took music when we were young. Our parents encouraged us to do this just as yours and my parents did. Do you think that myth is continuing to be perpetuated, that we are indeed overrepresented?

Jennifer Koh:

Well, I think about who’s saying that we’re overrepresented because I can guarantee you, you see the orchestras, even in the videos that I played, they are majority white. So who’s saying that we’re overrepresented, who’s making that definition, right? It’s not, it’s not coming from us. And why is there a cap on us? Why is there a cap on how many people that are Korean American or Asian American that are allowed to be in the business, that are allowed to be on stage? I mean, and then simultaneously in these same organizations, they never promote Korean Americans or Asian Americans, right? Like in any kind of management situation. So, you know, and people are talking about diversity, diversity, diversity. And what I often say is you have a minority group in classical music, but you’re not giving them any agency. So you’re talking about that you want to diversify with every other race. And I do think that’s correct. There’s underrepresentation of black and brown people in classical music. But at the same time, okay, what are you going to do when they are represented?

Alpin Hong:

Right.

Jennifer Koh:

You already have people of color in your industry and you don’t empower them at all. Right? So I think this question of diversity and equity and inclusivity is, and overrepresentation of Asians is, it’s really a story that’s being told by people that want to keep the industry the same.

Alpin Hong:

I agree with that. It brings to mind kind of when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was talking about when will there be enough women on the Supreme Court and her saying, what if this Supreme Court was all women? That still wouldn’t be too many, like there, to put a cap on this so ..

Jennifer Koh:

Yeah. Because historically for the last how many hundred years, it’s been all men. So how about for the next couple hundred years, it’s all women.

Alpin Hong:

Right? No problem with that. Another question that’s coming up is that somewhat one of our viewers has noticed a lot of Korean American and Asian American young musicians in youth orchestras. Why does it usually stop there?

Jennifer Koh:

So I think there’s several things. First of all, it’s really hard to be a musician. Second of all, oftentimes, you know what I said is I don’t come, my parents were not musicians. So a lot of what happens in classical music, I think in any field, right? If your parents are a doctor, you’re going to know what it means to be a doctor and your parents will tell you what it means to be a doctor. So if you decide to become a doctor, it’s not completely foreign territory. Whereas, you know, I came from a place where I didn’t know anything about what it meant to be a musician. I didn’t know necessarily the lifestyle. I didn’t have the connections, all of those sorts of things. So I think that’s much more, it’s a complicated question. But again, I think that that’s about really advocating for presence of Korean Americans and of Asian Americans, again, to be leaders. Because then those kids will see us and they’ll come to us and we can advise them and we can take care of them and we can nurture them through the business.

Right. But right now I’m sure it seems like it’s, I think it’s probably incredibly difficult to study law and be a doctor and all of those different things. And I certainly didn’t do those things, but if you have more of in your community, people that have done that, it’s far more unusual for somebody to become a soloist, right?

Alpin Hong:

Right.

Jennifer Koh:

There’s probably for violin soloists right now, total of like 12 of us in the world, right? So you don’t have that kind of commonality, but then you think about, okay, what race, what country are they coming from? And then you understand why they are in those positions and why it’s so much more unusual, right, to see a Korean American?

Alpin Hong:

Absolutely. This community that is watching right now. I know that you are new to the Council of Korean Americans.

Jennifer Koh:

I’m so excited you guys are here.

Alpin Hong:

But with my experience, yeah, with my experiences over the last two years, I came on board because I was so blown away by not only the enthusiasm of this particular group, but the power of this group. We have some real movers and shakers in our audience. And they are very, very eager to know about the specific actions that the Council of Korean Americans can make specifically, but the greater Korean American community as a whole to support your efforts.

Jennifer Koh:

Well, of course, I’ll ask for your help through ARCO Collaborative. The entire mission of this organization is an extension of my whole life mission, which is to bring forward our stories, right? People of color and inclusionary stories. And more specifically, our stories as Korean Americans have never been heard on stage, never, literally, never in the history of the world, never. So the ability to be able to bring forward this project, Everything That Rises, I think is particularly meaningful. Not only because the Korean American story is heard, but it’s being heard in Los Angeles after the riots and it’s being partnered with an African American man, right? The history of what we see of Korean American history is so highlighted by the riots in LA. And so the fact that we can counteract those stereotypes and really come together as two people of color that have had those very similar, actually, experiences growing up and within the classical music world.

The one interesting thing, we were doing a workshop together, Davone and I. And we’re talking about the structure of the piece. And at some point he said, oh my God, Jenny, I’ve been given the space as a black man to search and create work about my experience as an African American and you have never been given the space. And in fact, Asian Americans have never been given the space to tell their story. And he actually said, it’s more important for me to tell my story as a Korean American than it is for him to tell his story in this piece. Right? So if anybody can help, the more you can help us support ARCO Collaborative to bring that work to life would be so helpful. We need to raise an additional $50,000. If you really want to know, I’ll let you know how much it’s cost so much, so far.

Part of it was because of the constant delays from the pandemic, but it’s, I think it will be very meaningful for our community and for our people. And I think I’m so thrilled to meet you guys because I feel like you guys are the group I’ve been looking for my entire life. And I just can’t, I can’t thank, you know, Jennifer enough, Jonak. I can’t thank you Alpin and Abe enough because I feel like I’m finally coming home, you know. And when I was growing up, nobody really understood these experiences, right, that we’ve had. And we can’t really talk about it. I feel like a lot of times we’re, because we’re not given the space, right? Because we’re, yeah. So it’s so nice to be able to also feel free to speak about these issues here. So thank you. And the other thing is please join arts boards.

I would be more than happy to get to know anybody that would like to become part of the ARCO family. Part of my mission as well, because I am the leader of, and the founder of ARCO Collaborative is to bring in as many people of color as possible on my board. So, because I think with that, we can transform. And even for me who, most of what I do is advocate, right? For people of color in classical music. But having more people of color on the board actually pushes all of us in the organization to work harder for that mission and to really make that imagined world a reality.

Alpin Hong:

Well, thank you so much. Actually, I wish we had hours and hours because I feel like we’ve just, even just scraped the surface of the incredible projects and visions that you have in the future, but it’s so encouraging to be able to hear of it. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. It has been a privilege to get to know you again. And I look forward to the time I can experience your artistry again in person. I’m Alpin Hong and on behalf of the Council of Korean Americans, I encourage everyone watching to continue to support all of our efforts to bring together our community in the spirit of friendship, inspiration, and empowerment. We will be putting up some links to ARCO Collaborative and the other efforts that’s in projects that Jennifer Koh is working on right now. And I’d like to now hand it over back to the CKA executive director, Abraham Kim, for some final words.

Abe Kim:

Thank you again for joining us for another episode of the Korean American Perspectives podcast. We want to especially thank our moderator Alpin Hong and our distinguished guest Jennifer Koh for sharing her inspirational work and call to action for more leadership diversity in the arts.

For more episodes like this, please subscribe to our podcast and visit our website at councilka.org. Plus, if you like the show, please give us a 5-star rating. It will certainly help other listeners find the rich content of this podcast series.Well, thank you again and I hope you can tune in next time on the Korean American Perspectives podcast.