Michael R. Anderson
Altino (left), with freshman violinist Lydia Schweitzer, has developed a specialty in addressing overuse injuries.
With a reputation as a gifted teacher, violinist Soh-Hyun Park Altino will get to practice what she preaches at her Nov. 13 Madison debut recital in Mills Hall.
The UW School of Music’s new violin professor will share the stage with pianist Martha Fischer in a demanding program that includes Bach’s Sonata No. 3 in C major for solo violin, Brahms’ second violin sonata, Ives’ Violin Sonata No. 2 and the soaring “Romance” by Amy Beach.
Each piece has knotty terrain that requires advanced technical and interpretive skills. In the Bach sonata, melody lines that crisscross have to remain clear and distinct. The Ives piece has thorny polyrhythms and quick mood shifts. The Brahms sonata requires delicate balance between lyricism and virtuosity, while “Romance” demands sweet, effortless playing as the music lingers in the violin’s difficult high range.
Altino has performed around the globe to critical acclaim. Gramophone magazine praised a 2013 recording of Brahms and Debussy by Altino and the Ceruti Quartet for its “physically emotional power.” A sensitive interpreter of contemporary music, Altino has worked closely with such influential composers as Kamran Ince and Paul Desenne.
The School of Music is excited to have reeled Altino in to the faculty, where standards are high for performance and teaching.
“Soh-Hyun is a tested pedagogue, someone with a real history of strength in teaching as well as performing,” says Susan Cook, director of the School of Music. “Her playing is beautiful, and it has a quiet strength and determination. When she auditioned here, she played a Bach partita for solo violin that gave me goosebumps.”
Cook says Altino’s enterprising ideas were instrumental in her hire, including suggestions for expanding the school’s online presence. “I was excited to hear her ideas about recruiting students and ways to help students develop and mature,” says Cook. “Having been trained in Korea and the U.S., she will also bring a cosmopolitan experience to the university.”
Altino grew up in a musical family in Seoul. Her mother taught piano, and her grandparents directed a musical kindergarten. “Since there was no string player in my family, I thought it would be a good instrument to study,” says Altino.
Over the years, she has developed a specialty in addressing overuse injuries. “Playing the violin does not always look and feel natural,” says Altino. “Violinists can overexert and even injure themselves by prolonging a poor posture or repeating unnecessary movements while playing.”
She came to the U.S. in 1989 at age 16 and studied under Violaine Melançon, an award-winning violinist, at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
“Soh-Hyun has a rare talent for teaching,” says Melançon, who credits Altino with building the violin program at the University of Memphis, where she taught for 14 years.
Altino received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate from the Cleveland Institute, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein, who currently teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music and the Juilliard School. “Soh-Hyun is exceptionally adept at finding ways to develop her students,” Weilerstein wrote in an email to Isthmus. “She does this by defining ways to help them fully express the music they’re playing, as well as pinpointing solutions to technical problems they may be having. She is an excellent violinist and a wonderful person.”
