Eight emerging musicians from across the country will call the La Jolla area home for four weeks as the La Jolla Music Society’s 2025 SummerFest fellowship artists.
The artists, in two quartets, will participate in coaching workshops, perform in musical preludes and Encounters and join other SummerFest artists onstage. The nonprofit Farfy Foundation is the new name sponsor for the program.
Allison Boles, director of learning and engagement for the La Jolla Music Society, described the fellowship as “a training program for artists who are right on that cusp and that transition from their academic careers to their professional careers.”
“They’re already award winners on their own,” Boles said. “They’re already starting to establish their own professional careers — they’re just in the beginning phases of that. They’re just a really special group.”
The program also provides the fellows with a stipend and housing in partnership with UC San Diego.
The musicians on this year’s fellowship roster are:
• Hesper Quartet, a New York-based Korean American string ensemble consisting of violinists Valerie Kim and Yejin Yoon, violist Sohui Yun and cellist Connor Kim
• Larinae Ensemble, consisting of pianist Stephanie Tang, violinist Jake Dongyoung Shim, violist Joseph Skerik and cellist Jakob Giovanni Taylor. Unlike the Hesper Quartet, this group has not played together before.
Boles said the Music Society received 45 to 50 applicants for this year’s program, who were evaluated by a group including SummerFest Music Director and pianist Inon Barnatan, violinist Blake Pouliot and cellist Clive Greensmith.
Applicants must have a bachelor’s degree and be 21-31 years old to be eligible.
“It’s really fun to watch their transformation through the festival,” Boles said. “They get to know each other and learn how to play together.”
Taylor of the Larinae Ensemble said he grew up with music. In fact, his first days playing cello were when he was only 2. From then on, there wasn’t much question whether he would continue, he said.
“It’s become just part of my life at this point,” Taylor said. “When you start so early, you kind of grow up with the instrument. … So you’re never really without it. You don’t really think of it as sticking with it. It’s just a part of your life.”
Taylor completed two master’s degrees — one at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and another at the Yale School of Music — as well as an undergraduate degree at the New England Conservatory of Music. Soon he will pursue an artist’s diploma at the Colburn School in Los Angeles.
He said his selection for the fellowship was a “shock” and a “delight.” He added that it’s special that fellows are “really seen as an actual part of the overall fabric of the festival, not just an addition or a younger artist.”
One member of this year’s batch has roots in San Diego County. Though she currently lives and attends school in New York, Valerie Kim of the Hesper Quartet spent her elementary school days in Carlsbad and Carmel Valley.
She also latched onto music in her youth and performed and attended a master class through the La Jolla Music Society.
She grew up listening to piano and string music during car rides but didn’t find an interest in playing an instrument until her older sister did.
Kim started on piano but eventually branched out to violin.
“I ended up starting to play violin a few years later, actually because my parents thought my sister and I were getting a little too competitive with each other on the piano,” she said.
Kim eventually switched coasts to pursue a doctorate degree at The Juilliard School in New York City. She joined the Hesper Quartet in September last year.
“I was really hoping we would get into this program, especially because I grew up in San Diego and … going to some of the La Jolla Music Society concerts,” Kim said.
“I think, as a quartet, we have a lot to gain and a lot to learn from just performing in public,” she added. “I think a lot of our work has been somewhat insular so far — just the nature of preparing for performances.”
The fellowship program, in place for more than 35 years, ties into what the La Jolla Music Society at large is doing, Boles said.
“As a nonprofit, we exist to serve the community and serve our audiences,” she said. “But we also believe we’re here to serve artists and to serve the art form itself.
“I think this program ties into the last two. We want to develop the next generation of artists so we can continue to bring live music to people in San Diego. And that we can continue to see live music evolve.”
SummerFest’s concert schedule and the fellowship program run Friday, July 25, through Saturday, Aug. 23. Learn more about this year’s group at theconrad.org/2025-fellowship-artists. ♦