CHS STUDENT, TARINA KANG, TO PLAY VIOLIN AT CARNEGIE HALL

A Cape Girardeau Central High School senior will be spending Christmas in New York City this year, playing the violin at Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center.

Tarina Kang, 18, will be playing in the New York String Orchestra Seminar, sponsored by the New School Concert. She will be seated among 70 of the finest musicians in the country.

"This is by far one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me," Kang said. "I'm really excited about it."

The lengthy audition process began in the summer, when Kang and thousands of other aspiring young musicians sent audition tapes to New York.

After making the first cut, she drove to Chicago to audition before a panel of judges. Similar auditions were held in New York City, Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rochester and Boston.

"There were hundreds of people (in Chicago) auditioning," Kang said. "I just did my best."

Kang said that after she auditioned, she didn't give the idea of going to New York much thought. "I just thought that with so many people auditioning that there was little chance that I would make it," Kang said.

But Kang's past achievements flagged this kind of recognition.

When she was 5, she began studying the Suzuki method of violin at Southeast Missouri State University. At 8, she was studying under Kurt Sassmanshaus at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

Several camps, scholarships, recitals and honors later, Kang now studies under Josef Gingold at the University of Indiana at Bloomington.

She practices more than three hours a day, one of those before she leaves for school in the morning.

At Central High School, Kang is president of her class and the National Honor Society.

"I like to stay real active," Kang said. "I'm really enjoying my senior year; there's so much to do."

Kang said that she hasn't decided upon a college or even what she wants to study, but "I'm working on it. I've got some really big decisions to make."

Kang leaves for New York City on Dec. 18. Once there, she and the other musicians will begin intense rehearsals, preparing them for the Christmas Eve performance in Carnegie Hall, and their Dec. 26 performance in the Lincoln Center.

"I'm going to miss Christmas at home, but I can handle it," Kang said. "This is, after all, a pretty big deal."