“…concertmaster David Kim, who played one of his best-ever performances in Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No. 3. The younger Kim showed his Juilliard School roots readily with an aggressive vibrato and businesslike interpretive manner that’s still sometimes apparent in his old concerto repertoire. However, his Saint-Saens performance was state-of-the-art Kim with the richer tone quality he’s developed since becoming Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster some 12 years ago, and his way of letting the music happen, playing with a technical comfort that naturally releases the music’s emotional content. At times, Kim seemed to be in a parallel time zone that used any given tempo as a perimeter for flexible phrasing that can momentarily convince you this is one of the great concertos.” —David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer
