Everyone has a story worth telling. At least, that's the theory. To test it, Tempo is throwing darts at the phone book. When a dart hits a name, a reporter dials the phone number and asks if someone in the home will be interviewed. Stories appear on Fridays.

        What do you want to do with your life?

        For a long time, 17-year-old Caroline Lee of Montgomery appeared headed toward an obvious answer.

        She was 3 when she began learning piano; 4 when she took up violin. By the time she was in kindergarten, she thought nothing of practicing two to three hours a day.

        She was 7 when, with schedules to juggle, her mother asked her to choose between the two instruments. Caroline chose violin, explaining, “It's a challenge.”
       

A solo with the CSO

Violinist Caroline Lee, 17, has won several music competitions. Her sister Andrea, 13, (at piano) also is a talented musician. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        In the 10 years since, she has blossomed into a marvelous musician. She works hard, practicing 20 to 30 hours a week.

        A portion of her summers is spent at either the acclaimed Aspen Music School in Colorado, or in Germany where she studies under eminent teacher Jens Ellerman.

        Closer to home, she is concertmaster with the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra (CSYO), an elite group of musicians in grades 9 through 12.

        Caroline has won a number of concerto competitions sponsored by various symphonies. Her most recent win comes with a perk: In May at Music Hall, she will perform a solo during a joint concert by the CSYO and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

        “In a word, she's awesome,” says David Smarelli, orchestra director at Sycamore High School, where Caroline is a senior. In Mr. Smarelli's 19 years at the school, “She's one of the finest musicians to ever go through my program.

        “She's playing the types of pieces that most college students would love to be able to play, and play with the expertise she does. She's just a wonderful performer. And she's very humble about it, too.”

        So, what do you want to do with your life, Caroline?

        “I want to be a doctor,” she says.
       

Kept an open mind

        To her parents, Soon and Chun Lee, this is hardly a disappointment. Or a surprise.

        Soon and Chun came to America from South Korea in the 1970s, looking for opportunity. They've found it. And so have their daughters.

        Soon had a talk with Caroline when she was a high school freshman. She didn't want her daughter to feel that her career path was preordained. Keep an open mind and look around, Soon told her.

        In fact, Caroline and her sister, Andrea, who is four years younger, had been doing just that. Andrea, also a talented musician, dreams of being a neurosurgeon.

        As youngsters, they occasionally visited their mother's workplace. Soon, a registered nurse, works in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at University Hospital.

        Her sophomore year, Caroline began serving as a Red Cross volunteer in her mother's hospital ward, which gave her a chance to talk to doctors. The next year, she attended a National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine and found more encouragement.

        She likes to set challenging goals. “I work my hardest,” she says, “and I usually meet them. It gives me focus and direction.”

        She has been focused on music for a long time. She won't give it up.

        “All the colleges I'm looking at have strong music departments,” Caroline says. “That's a must for me. I know my main extracurricular will be orchestra.

        “I really enjoy doing that. But I don't know that it would fulfill me (as a career). I don't know if I'd go home every day and be like, "Wow, that was a day well spent.'

        “I like service. I'm pretty good with kids, so I'm thinking of (medicine) in that area, or general medicine.”

        Her father, a research scientist, says, “You never know. She might change her mind,” become a professional musician, or let her interests lead her elsewhere.

        Or maybe she will settle on medicine. In which case she might come to find that, to an ailing patient, the words of a caring, committed doctor can be as sweet as the sound of any violin.

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