Eunice Kang was born and raised in Raleigh, NC. Her parents and her older sister are first generation immigrants from Korea. Eunice started playing piano when she was eight and took up the cello in middle school. She earned a B.M. in Cello Performance from Indiana University Bloomington and a master’s degree from the University of Akron in Ohio. She came to Athens to attend UGA, where she earned a D.M.A. in Cello Performance. During graduate school Eunice had an assistantship playing in the Athens Symphony for four years and is a founding member of the string quartet Athena Quartet (formerly Classic City Strings), which has been playing weddings and other events since 2002.
For 15 years, Eunice split her time teaching Orchestra between Clarke Middle School and Clarke Central High School. She now teaches full time at Clarke Central where she is the Director of Orchestras and Co-Chair of the Fine Arts Department. Eunice also serves on the CCHS Local School Governance Team and the Restorative Culture Leadership Team.
Eunice has played with several local bands, including with Lera Lynn and Abbey Road LIVE!, who she toured with around the Southeast. Eunice serves on the Board of Directors for the local nonprofit AthFest Educates, having been a grantee and seeing the organization’s impact first hand. Eunice lives in the Historic West Hancock area of Normaltown with her husband Joe, their dog Gigi and cat Ghia (“cute” in Korean).
What do you love most about your work?
Oh, it’s definitely the students. Getting to meet all of the different personalities, they have different backgrounds and their families have been so wonderful and supportive. Just being a teacher has made me want to stay here forever because every year I meet more and more new families and new students that make me so happy to live in Athens.
What do you do when you’re not working?
I love to garden, so I’ve been doing a lot of that. Especially in the summer as a teacher with the summers off. I really focus on flowers. And in and around Athens we love Normaltown, we go to all the places around there: HiLo, Automatic Pizza, Normal Bar, Agua Linda. And obviously downtown is wonderful. I think we have such a great variety of restaurants and live music. We love going to Hendershot’s and Little Kings– we actually had our wedding reception at Little Kings; it’s one of our favorite places.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Korea, because my family is there. I visited Korea once when I was in my twenties but it was really brief, with my Mom, and my Korean was so terrible that I couldn’t absorb and do everything I wanted. So I’d love to go to Korea. I’d also love to go to Southeast Asia just to see all of the architecture and the wildlife, and all the vegetation, the flowers, everything there. I’m [also] so interested in going to the South Pacific with all the rich cultures and all the different islands.
If you could see any musician anywhere at any time, who and where?
I would love to see Beethoven and an orchestra. I’ve read about him conducting his own work. That would be amazing to me because he’s my favorite composer and I would just be so interested to hear what that sounded like and what he was like in person. I guess he was mostly based in Vienna, but I would see him anywhere.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Oh, I would say take more risks. I definitely was always worried about making mistakes and I’m sure I didn’t enjoy college and my twenties and thirties as much as I probably could have. But now that I’m older, I feel like I’m throwing caution to the wind and taking a lot more risks and enjoying myself a lot more. And that’s good, I feel like I’m having good older years. But I would definitely say, “Take more risks and be open to new adventures.”
Do you have a favorite book, or a book that you find yourself referencing or gifting often?
Well, I just finished This Is Vegan Propaganda: (And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You) by Ed Winters. He’s a YouTube personality, known as Earthling Ed. I’m not vegan completely, but I am really trying to transition to this because it is a compelling book and it really does acknowledge that most vegans have been, historically, very militant and off-putting, annoying, and that’s why veganism has such a bad rap. But he really focuses on the humanity side and why it’s no different to farm and kill pigs and cows than it would be for our most precious dogs and cats. We would never allow someone to put our dog in a cage and have no light for it’s entire life, just to be murdered for food. So if I think about it that way, there’s no way I can ever eat meat again. I’m still in the process, I’m transitioning.
Do you have a favorite movie?
By far, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I have the box set, the DVDs. That’s how old I am. I’ve rewatched them like, a hundred times. I have those movies memorized. I don’t know why, I was really obsessive about those movies. I have a full Galadriel outfit, complete with cloak, wig, and ears, that I wore for Halloween for like ten years. I might wear it again this year.
If you could put any message on a billboard, what would it be?
Oh, I love this– one of our counselors has this as her signature in her email. It says, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” I love that quote, and I think of it all the time. It’s always possible to be kind.
If you could have lunch with anyone dead or alive, who and where?
I would love to meet Billie Holliday, just because she’s such a legend jazz singer and had such a rough life. I would love to meet her and get to know her. She fascinates me. I guess we’d go somewhere in New York, somewhere cool.
What three words or phrases come to mind when you think of the word “home”?
Definitely “Athens, Georgia.” This is my home; I definitely claim this as my most favorite home. And my husband Joe and our sweet Gigi and Ghia.
