Violinist Grace Park’s appointment as concertmaster promises a vibrant new chapter for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
By Tess Lopez
To be an orchestra concertmaster is to be a leader who inspires focus. Discipline. Uniformity. They’re the conductor’s closest collaborator and a model of precision for the rest of the ensemble. When a vacancy for the role opened at the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the search was on for someone whose artistry reflected both discernment and musical excellence. Violinist Grace Park fit the bill perfectly.
At age 5, her musical instincts were already taking shape. After Thursday playdates with her best friend, Sue, were indefinitely postponed to make room for Sue’s violin lessons, Park was heartbroken. Determined to preserve their weekly tradition, Park tagged along to the lessons. She met the instructor and watched her friend struggle with the mechanics of gripping the bow—a concept Park found easy to grasp. “I just remember thinking, ‘Why can’t she get it?’” Park said. “Watching [the instructor], I just felt like I could get it. It might have actually been my first strong intuitive feeling in life.”
After begging her mom for a violin of her own, Park took up lessons with the same instructor. She began studying at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, a Los Angeles institution producing world-class talent, such as Oscar-nominated composer and pianist Kris Bowers. At just 9 years old, Park was invited to perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with a professional orchestra—an early taste of the rigorous performances that would later define her career.
Talent alone isn’t enough to sustain an upward trajectory. Similar to many teens involved in competitive extracurriculars, Park experienced a period when violin practice felt more like homework. “I would have lessons with the teachers, and they could tell I wasn’t practicing,” Park said. “Then my mom would get frustrated.”
So, when Park was admitted to the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute’s Summer Academy, a prestigious program based in Ohio for young performers, her mom sat her down and held up a wad of cash. “‘You’re an adult now, and this is how much it takes to send you [to the academy],’” Park recalled her mom saying. “‘It’s up to you what you decide to do with it.’”
That conversation stayed with Park, and when she arrived at the academy, she was surrounded by disciplined musicians whose talent underscored a truth she hadn’t realized: Excellence required effort. “[The academy had] some of the best string players in the country,” she said. “I was so overwhelmed. Then I thought, ‘If I want to keep up with this, if I want to get to that level, I actually better practice; I gotta revamp my life.’”
Any complacency her 15-year-old self may have felt gave way to discipline. She would wake up early to practice for an hour before school and repeat the process when she returned home, clocking as many as 10 hours of practice daily. A standout application and audition earned her a coveted spot in violinist Donald Weilerstein’s studio at Boston’s New England Conservatory. There, she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music before heading to New York City. Park picked up gigs around the city, playing background music for events or with chamber orchestras. After three years, she started to burn out. “I realized it wasn’t the most musically fulfilling,” she said “I missed doing solo repertoire. I missed playing concerts with orchestras.”
To shift back into classical performances required rebuilding the techniques she learned early on. She spent a year and a half doubling down on the traditional mechanics of the violin before finding her way back onto stages as a solo musician. To further secure her place as a soloist, Park entered and won the Naumburg International Violin Competition in 2018. Park’s win unlocked invitations to perform with orchestras around the country as a solo violinist.
Despite its enduring presence, the classical music scene is a small world, according to Park, where “you’ll end up going to the same places, knowing the same people.” One of the people in that circle was cellist Eric Jacobsen, who shared the stage with Park for several chamber performances. The two clicked, and when Jacobsen became the music director for the Orlando Philharmonic, he invited Park to solo with the orchestra. After his appointment as music director for the Virginia Symphony Orchestra years later, he called Park again, this time to ask if she would join the ensemble as its new concertmaster. “It wasn’t something I had in mind. So, when he first presented it to me, my initial reaction was ‘no,’” Park said. Follow-up conversations and trial runs shed light on the repertoire available in the symphony space, and she fully stepped into the role at the start of the 2025-2026 season.
As concertmaster, Park is charged with leading the orchestra as the second-in-command to the conductor: leading the group in tuning before performances and dictating stylistic choices for the strings section, such as what direction to glide their bows or the particular phrasing of a melody. “There’s a great symbiosis that happens between the concertmaster and conductor, and there’s just an amazing power you feel when you’re sitting alongside 80-some players,” Park said of performing as concertmaster. “You’re part of this big organism that’s just building and growing.”
Being a concertmaster is a heavy responsibility. “Whatever you decide affects all the other sections and the strings,” Park said. Her concertmaster responsibilities are tied to a set seasonal schedule that often doesn’t coincide with her work as a soloist. One week she might be jetting off to perform as the guest soloist for the Sarasota Orchestra in Florida before heading to Virginia for a rehearsal that’s been scheduled a year in advance.
With her second season as concertmaster underway, Park is eager for Virginia audiences to experience the repertoire of classical works the Virginia Symphony has been rehearsing with her at the helm. In late September, she’ll perform Philip Glass’ latest work, Symphony No. 15, Lincoln, alongside the orchestra. Later in the season, she will join cellist and Newport News native Sterling Elliott for Brahms’ Double Concerto before donning both her concertmaster and soloist hats for a Mozart and Schubert concert.
It’s a loaded schedule, but Park is a lifelong expert at making time for what matters—and discovering more about herself along the way. “Being concertmaster of the Virginia Symphony is a new adventure,” she said, “but it’s led me to a lot more that I didn’t realize was possible for me.”
