New Hires and Promotions in the Department of Music

Photos Submitted

Left to right: Hyun Kim, Josquin Larsen, Elizabeth Margulis, Moon-Sook Park, Justin R. Hunter

Last year was another exciting time for the Department of Music. Faculty and students gave over 600 performances in UA, regional, national and international ensembles and venues. Faculty gave lectures and workshops across the state and at national and international conferences. Student success continues to be at the forefront of the department's goals in providing pertinent, meaningful and impactful instruction.

This year, the department has set its sights on continued growth and expanded outreach in the state through performance, education and community partnerships.

To aid in those goals, the Department of Music within the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, is delighted to announce the hiring of two new faculty members and the promotion of three long-time music faculty and staff members.

Hyun Kim has been hired as a visiting assistant professor of piano, and Josquin Larsen joins the string faculty as the department's new instructor of viola. Both Park and Larsen will work one-on-one with students in the respective areas as well as contribute the overall instruction of both music majors and non-music majors for the department.

Elizabeth Margulis has been promoted to Distinguished Professor, the first professor with that distinction in the Department of Music. Moon-Sook Park successfully gained tenure and was promoted to associate professor of voice. Park will continue in her role running a private voice studio and continues to develop the vocal pedagogy area of the department. Justin R. Hunter was promoted from a staff position with adjunct teaching duties to a faculty position as instructor of musicology and the director of admissions and operations for the music department.

NEW FACULTY

Pianist Hyun Kim, native of South Korea, joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2018. She performs and teaches throughout the United States and is frequently engaged in performances and master classes in Asia, Europe, and South America. 

Kim collaborates with instrumentalists from prominent orchestras, including the Cincinnati Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, New World Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, and São Paolo Symphony orchestras and with singers from the Metropolitan Opera, Minnesota Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Aspen Opera Center, Opera Colorado, Boulder Opera Company, Central City Opera, and Kentucky Opera companies. She has performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Grandin Music Festival, the Festival de Musique de Sully et de Loiret in France, the Lucca Opera Festival in Italy, and Sintonize Produtora Cultural New Music Festival in Brazil. Kim has appeared as an orchestral pianist and harpsichordist with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra. She has served as a pianist for several competitions, including the Sterling String Competition, Metropolitan Opera national council auditions, Denver Lyric Opera Competition, Ekstrand Competition, Corbett Opera Competition, and various young artist competitions. Her performances and interviews have been broadcast on KVOD-FM Colorado Public Radio and Rocky Mountain PBS.

As an educator, Kim has taught piano and chamber music and has coached opera productions at several music institutions in the United States as a faculty member, including Metropolitan State University of Denver, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Miami University.  She has also been appointed internationally as a guest artist and clinician at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and at the University of Campinas in Brazil.  Her particular interest in young artists has led her to serve as an adjudicator for the annual Tasco Young Artists Competition.

Kim is active with several scholarly organizations internationally and her most recent projects have been with Song of the New Generation in Asia, an organization that she founded to promote the research and performance of the contemporary art song medium, and Kim has served as a committee member with Sintonize Produtora Cultural, a new music festival in Brazil. She has delivered lectures on career development and entrepreneurship for pianists, ballad form in nineteenth-century lieder, metrics and rhythmic relationships in Brahms' Ballade, and poetics and syntax in contemporary English-language art songs at art associations as well as universities. She wrote two theses based on unexplored works: Schubert's Ballad "Die Bürgschaft," D. 246: An Operatic Microcosm, and Jean Berger: A Study of his Life Experience as it Pertains to his Art Songs.

While Kim was in South Korea, she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance and a Master of Music degree in collaborative piano.  She then pursued a second Master of Music degree in piano accompanying and vocal coaching from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where she studied under Kenneth Griffith, Richard Morris, Michael Chertock, and Sandra Rivers. Kim also studied harpsichord with Vivian Montgomery and organ with Roberta Gray while at Cincinnati. She then earned her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Colorado Boulder in collaborative piano under Anne Epperson, Margaret McDonald, Alexandra Nguyen, Robert Spillman, and Mutsumi Moteki.  While at the University of Colorado Boulder, she worked closely with the world-renowned Takács String Quartet and with Maestro Nicholas Carthy. Kim's interest in literature and music led her to additional studies in France at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.

Violist Josquin Larsen performs as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player throughout North America and Europe. He performs regularly with the Arkansas and Jackson, Tennessee, Symphonies, and he recently joined the Arkansas Philharmonic. After completing his studies, Josquin moved to the Burgundy region of France where he served as Principal Viola of the Orchestre du Creusot and performed the Telemann Concerto with Arioso, a baroque ensemble. Recent chamber music highlights include performing at the 2018 American Viola Society Festival in Los Angeles. 

Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Arkansas, Josquin taught at Arkansas State University where he was a member of the Faculty Piano Quartet. He regularly works with young musicians through masterclasses, leading sectionals with area youth and honor orchestras and as a clinician. 

He holds degrees from the University of Northern Colorado and the Boston Conservatory. His principal viola teachers include Patricia McCarty and Kazuko Matsusaka.