My name is Maya Kim, and I'm a professor of music here at the University of Central Missouri.

I teach piano to music majors and non majors who are learning to play the piano for various reasons.

So I have played the piano since I was three years old.

Once I got on the piano bench, I never left.

by the time I was in late elementary school, I was pretty certain that piano was my thing.

It was always a matter of, I'm going to do music.

How?

That's going to take shape.

I'm not sure, but we're going to find out.

and I will say that I did not plan on being a teacher when I was in college.

We were required to take a teaching course, and, it was just the most fun thing ever.

I just, never looked back.

That was going to be part of my life.

and then as time went on, I went through school, and then, my, I figured out that my dream was to teach the university.

So I work with all kinds of students and in 1996, I landed here and have been very happy ever since.

Performing is about connecting with people, telling stories.

creating a space where they can experience their own stories.

I also think of it as like being, chefs.

And you make dinner for people.

I mean, I can make dinner for myself, and I enjoy eating plenty, but I really love to share it with other people.

And so performing as a way t.. and share music with other people.

And so I think of live performance as being you are there, I am here, we are sharing, we are sharing energy in the room that doesn't that doesn't transcend discrete.

You can sort of feel like it, but it's really it's different.

This past January, I had the great privilege and enjoyment to perform in New York City's Carnegie Hall.

I was there as a part of a program featuring the music of a Greek composer, Athanasius Cervantes.

and so we got to, perform there for a full house.

And, it was just it was very exciting.

I've played a lot of interesting places in the world.

but this, because it was so historic, was, especially cool.

In February, I performed a solo recital here in her recital.. And this was actually, this was the first time I had done an all solo program in maybe a decade.

I actually I was shocked when I really looked at the calendar.

but it was really fun for me because these are pieces that I have wanted to learn for years, and they've just sat on my shelf.

so it was a real labor of love.

I think of my job as a door opener, and I help students open doors.

Sometimes I introduce them to the fact that a door exists, and sometimes I help them open it.

Sometimes I push them through it.

but either way, once you walk through those doors and you've learned something, you're not the same.

You can't go back to not knowing things and not experiencing things and not feeling things.

You love seeing how students go from, you know, which is my right hand and which is my .. to expressing themselves at the piano, finding enjoyment at that, and discovering that it's a whole music is a whole language that they can speak.

and love helping them speak that language.

Well, if somebody came to me and said, I would like to study music, maybe I'd like to do it for college, maybe I'd like to do it for a job.

I'd be super excited because of course, I think music is a language, and anytime you can learn, a new language should go for it was language helps us communicate with people.

Communication is connection, and connection is the reason we exist.

if somebody says, I want to study it and I want to make this my life profession, I'd say, well, I will tell you that I think it's the most fun thing you can possibly do.

I don't know any other job I could possibly imagine more.

I will also say that, a lot of times people don't realize that being a musician and liking music are not the same thing.

Be ready to think about forging your path, and it won't be forged for you that you will have to think of a way forward and lay those stones down the path.

But if you do, it is something that you literally even on the worst days.

I enjoy it very much.

You don't.

You're not going to .. Everest in a day, or even a semester or or a year.

Learning to play the piano takes many, many years.

to do it well.

and in fact, even when you can do it well, it's a lifetime project to do it better.

but if you can be persistent and just do a little bit every day, you might be amazed at how far down the road you can get.

One of the things I have enjoyed the most about my 28 years here at the University of Central Missouri, is how connected the community is to this department.

And so that has led me to, several of the things that I do on the side, one of which is I'm the founder and the president of the Warrensburg Friends of Music, which is a philanthropic group of folks who want to support music in our community.

And so it's something we love to do.

I like to think that just the community gives to me and I can give back to it.

and I also, run the University of Central Missouri Community Music Program, which is a program by which students, children and adults can take lessons here, at the university with teachers who are trained in how to teach kids and adults, and they can pursue music recreationally and have a good time.

So be patient and being regular.

a little bit of attention every day just reaps you a lifetime benefit because it's you learn a new language.

You learn.

It's like you open these doors and you walk through them and have all these adventures.

Never went had.