The music she almost lost

For much of her childhood, Mari Lee struggled to find a place where she belonged. Born into a Korean family in Japan, she grew up without citizenship, part of a community whose complicated history left generations caught between two countries. She was a foreigner in the only country she had ever called home.

Then, at age 8, she discovered the violin. Music offered something that nationality could not. It gave her a language that crossed borders, a way to connect with people without having to explain where she came from or where she belonged.

"I always grew up with a sense of not knowing where I belong because I didn't belong to a country and I was born a foreigner," Lee said. "Music became that space where I felt like I could connect with people."

She devoted herself to the instrument, eventually building an international career that took her to some of the world's most prestigious concert halls. And then, about a decade ago, the violin that had given her a place in the world began threatening to take it all away.

Lee developed a rare and severe allergy to rosin, the substance string musicians apply to their bows to create friction against the strings. For a violinist, avoiding rosin is nearly impossible.

The condition initially caused severe skin reactions, including blisters on her face. Eventually, she said, the symptoms became respiratory and increasingly serious.

"I essentially became allergic to violin," she said.

For years, she kept the condition largely private, worried that revealing it might jeopardize her career. But the physical consequences became impossible to ignore. Last October, she stepped away from performing for six months and began studying software engineering, contemplating a future without the instrument that had defined her life.

"I really thought that I would not be playing," she said. "I didn't know that I would still be playing now."

This weekend, Lee will take the stage with the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra, performing Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1. The performance represents something far more personal than another appearance with an orchestra.

"I didn't think that I would be playing the concerto with an orchestra, let alone playing at all," she said. "And so, this is a huge personal milestone."

Her return to Las Cruces also brings together musicians whose careers have taken them to some of the nation's leading orchestras, part of a week of chamber music performances and educational outreach organized by symphony conductor Jorge Martínez-Ríos.

Lee grew up in Kyoto, Japan, as a third-generation Zainichi Korean, a community with roots in Korea's history under Japanese colonial rule. Just three years after beginning violin lessons, she was accepted into the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in England, where she lived away from her parents and trained among other talented young musicians. Initially trained as a soloist, she discovered chamber music in her early 20s and found a new appreciation for creating music collaboratively.

Her career has included guest appearances with the New York Philharmonic and other prominent orchestras. She also founded a nonprofit that combines musical performances with Japanese craftsmanship, storytelling and cultural traditions. About 10 years ago, she met Martínez-Ríos at a festival in San Antonio. The two discovered a shared belief in music's ability to connect people across cultural boundaries.

"He is such a force of nature doing exactly that in Las Cruces," she said.

Their friendship has brought Lee to southern New Mexico before, including a performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with the New Horizons Symphony three years ago. This time, she returns with a different perspective.

Lee has gradually resumed performing while taking precautions to manage her allergy, including wearing a mask when playing with other string musicians.

"Every time I perform now it's a completely different experience than before," she said.

Joining Lee for the chamber music activities is Los Angeles Philharmonic cellist Zachary Mowitz, whose own musical journey began with a father's dream. Growing up in Princeton, New Jersey, Mowitz started playing cello at age 4½. His father, a classical composer, had already introduced his older son to the violin, partly because he had written a duet for the two instruments and dreamed his sons might someday perform it together.

That dream took an unexpected turn. Mowitz became a professional musician, while his brother became a physicist.

Mowitz studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and eventually joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic, balancing his orchestral career with his passion for chamber music. He also founded Modality Music, a nonprofit platform that commissions compositions exploring environmental issues, including climate change.

Mowitz believes music has the ability to reach people emotionally in ways that facts and statistics sometimes cannot. He also values the increasingly uncommon experience of people gathering to share a live performance.

"You're all sharing the same experience in time at the same time," he said, something he believes is "becoming increasingly rare."

During his Las Cruces visit, Mowitz will perform a composition written specifically for him by his father, another connection between the music he plays today and the family that introduced him to it.

Lee, who has collaborated with Mowitz for years, invited him to join her, Martínez-Ríos and Las Cruces Symphony concertmaster Brigid McCarthy for the quartet performances. The musicians share a belief that classical music should extend beyond concert halls and connect with the communities around them.

That connection has taken on new meaning in Lee’s life. The violin once gave her a sense of belonging when she had no country to call her own. Then it threatened to take away the identity she had built around it.

After a decade of struggling privately with her allergy, she is speaking publicly about the condition for the first time, hoping her experience might offer encouragement to others facing seemingly insurmountable challenges.

"You never know what's possible," she said. "And depending on how you approach a challenge in your life, there's so much you can do with it."

For now, she is playing again, grateful for opportunities she once assumed would always be there. But she no longer takes any performance for granted.

"Every time I think, well, it might be the last time," she said.

And perhaps that is why the music means more to her now than ever before.