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First Violin

Alex Shum

Alex Shum grew up in Hong Kong. He earned degrees in the United States from the California Institute of the Arts and St. John’s University in Minnesota. He won first prize in the Carmel Chamber Music Competition and was a Leonard Bernstein violin fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. He has been with the Kansas City Symphony since its founding in 1982. Shum also performs with the Brookside String Quartet. To learn more, visit brooksidestrings.com.


Alex Shum

Alex Shum grew up in Hong Kong. He earned degrees in the United States from the California Institute of the Arts and St. John’s University in Minnesota. He won first prize in the Carmel Chamber Music Competition and was a Leonard Bernstein violin fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. He has been with the Kansas City Symphony since its founding in 1982. Shum also performs with the Brookside String Quartet. To learn more, visit brooksidestrings.com.

Founding the Brookside String Quartet.

When I am in sync with the audience.

My lovely wife, Joanna, and I have 5 wonderful children and 6 beautiful grandkids. I enjoy cooking, doing origami and playing ping-pong.

Two of my earliest musical memories were watching Yehudi Menuhin playing solo Bach and Neville Marriner leading the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

I would like to entertain papa Haydn in my home and serve him some personally grilled grass-fed ribeye.

Absolutely On Music by Haruki Murakami

We have the warmest and most appreciative audience.