The man behind the music

Whatever you do, don't call the new chorale director "Maestro." Korean-born Chris Kim hates formality _ in fact, upon seeing him around campus you might think he's just another student, dressed casually in khakis and a t-shirt.

The director is ready to plunge in to this year, as he rarely shies from trying new things. On the contrary, he throws himself into new situations wholeheartedly and regularly.

When Kim heard about a position at Tufts he immediately came over _ and was immediately faced with a week full of six hour rehearsals and a trip to Greece with students he had never even met as the Chorale group prepares for its trip to the Mediterrean nation.

"At the interview, they asked me if I knew Greek. I said, 'Why, are a lot of your students Greek?" he said.

The chorale director was recruited to replace orchestra director Malka Yaacobi while she took maternity leave and was inspired to stay at Tufts because the students he teaches are as crazy about playing music as he is.

"Where I taught in New Orleans, students often had this attitude like, 'Why am I here?' and didn't play up to the level they should have," he said. "When I came here I re-discovered that people play music because it's fun."

Kim says that Boston is a much better place than both New Orleans and Quincy, IL, where he also taught music for a few years. "It was 50 miles of corn and nothing, and I drove 5.5 hours every weekend to see my friends in Chicago."

But the frenetic director couldn't take it even in New York. "They're just too fast!" Kim found a certain level of culture in Boston at a pace he could manage _ and besides, his friends and family are here.

Here, Kim can play in a chamber ensemble with his college friends and attend major orchestra concerts without actually having to play in them himself.

He whips out a picture of his niece and nephew and retells the time he took them to a Red Sox game. Kim's eyes turn wide as he tells how his six-year-old nephew turned down a chance to go out on the field and play ball.

And he's even happier now than a year ago when he first came in for whirlwind rehearsals and a jaunt off to Athens with Tufts' instrumentalists. He enjoys teaching and directing chorale because he has been singing in choir all his life _ while also playing the oboe, the cello and the piano.

"There's an immediate physical response you get from people who sing, because you are the instrument. If you say to instrumentalists, 'Play it like a sunset,' they'll roll their eyes at you," Kim said. "But you can say that to singers. If you're really involved in a piece and a character, you feel it: it affects the intonation and the diction."

Kim does not intend to change the program much from that of previous director Jim John, who is now teaching for his alma mater, Queens College in New York. The reason why? The two were very much on they seem to share the same musical vision. They always agreed on the way to interpret a piece, even without having discussed it together.

But Kim does intend to branch out with more new music, beginning with this semester's repertoire of "Misa Criola," a Latin mass played out against indigenous folk music, as well as more traditional classical pieces like Gabriel Faure's Requiem.

The singer/director/chamber music/oboist accepted his former job in New Orleans hoping to bring in more new music but got frustrated when he was constantly turned down.

"They were always telling me they didn't have the money to rent new pieces." Luckily, Tufts doesn't suffer from that problem _ neither in money nor in interest. "John McDonald [the chair of the music department] is a composer himself, so he really likes conducting new music," says Kim.

Although Kim intends to put the spotlight on Spanish music this semester, given the upcoming Chamber Singers' trip to Spain, he won't predict what types of music he may use in future years. "Themes are easier to sell, but you can't just do themes because then you end up doing music you don't care about," Kim said.

But the musician and director have no difficulty in choosing his music. He listens to his mother _ sort of. "I have a rule about 'what would my mother like,'" says Kim. "She plays the cello but is not a professional. I may care about the technical stuff and cool fugues, but she just wants to hear good music, something that she understands. So I try for a balance between easy to listen to and cool technical stuff."

Though Kim is a believer in balance _ both in life and in music _ he admits there is a real reason that he loves Tufts and its "brilliant" students: just like him, they're interested in everything and want to do it all.