The Kamiak High School’s Über Kammerstreich, which means super chamber orchestra in German, is a prestigious orchestral group composed of juniors and seniors. String players who want to join Kammerstreich must go through a rigorous audition process in order to be admitted. Only the most talented students join this highly selective group. As a result, the Kammerstreich receives many awards. One student, however, became a part of Kammerstreich as a sophomore. Meet Daniel Kim, a violin player from Kamiak High School.
“I never thought I would make it,” exclaimed Kim. “Kammerstreich is an extremely prestigious group and I’m glad I got in.” Kim is only one of the two sophomores that are in the group. He started playing violin when he was in third grade.
“Practicing really helped.” said Kim. “Violin is the kind of instrument that sounds terrible in the beginning, but with a lot of practice, it starts sounding beautiful. After I got the hang of it, I started loving the instrument. I play it every day not because I’m obligated to, but because I want to.” When he entered Olympic View middle school in Mukilteo, Wash., Kim became the concertmaster for two years-in the sixth grade and in the eighth grade.
Kim realized he needed to start taking orchestra more seriously in eighth grade if he wanted to be recognized by the orchestra teacher in Kamiak High School. “I realized I needed to make violin my priority. It’s something that I love to do,” said Kim. When he entered Kamiak High School, Kim decided to try out for Philharmonic Strings II, which is an orchestra strictly reserved for sophomores. “I practiced a lot for it. I was pretty nervous,” said Kim. But the result was great; the orchestra teacher, Brian Steves, was so impressed with Kim’s audition that he put Kim in the first violin position. “The orchestra is divided into first violins and second violins. The first violins have the major part while the second violins have the lesser part,” explained Kim.
To increase his violin skills, Kim enrolled in Everett Youth Symphony Orchestra which is based in Everett, Wash. He also tried out for the violin position in the pit orchestra for the musical “Oklahoma!,” which was a musical production from Kamiak High School’s drama department in 2011. “I’m just trying to expand the range of my violin skills. Each orchestra requires different types of violin techniques,” said Kim.
Aside from playing violin, Kim is also enrolled in honors and Advanced Placement classes such as AP world history, chemistry honors, and algebra II/trigonometry honors. He loves to play guitar in his leisure time when he is not cramped with practicing violin or studying for the AP exams. After high school, Kim wants to matriculate into University of Washington and major in architecture. “Whatever my future career is, I’m always going to play the violin. It means so much to me,” remarked Kim.
Great article, Andrew! Maybe you should re-format your article to make it stronger/easier for readers to follow. 🙂
Hi Ann! Could you define what re-formatting means exactly? Do you want me to re-format my article content-wise or organization-wise?
Sorry for being unclear! I meant make spaces or indents to distinguish each “paragraph” because it looks like one big paragraph right now. I hope that makes sense 😛
Hi, Andrew. This article was an interesting features article. I liked the angle on the subject and the pictures that were included. Changing the title to something more attention grabbing (For example, “High school student qualifies for Germany’s super chamber orchestra”) and getting quotes from people other than Kim will make the article more engaging.