Who is that violinist with the rainbow hair? Meet Minnesota Orchestra’s Susie Park.

Between rehearsing and performing, violinist Susie Park stole away to an office in Orchestra Hall to practice.

Her bow was exacting, but her body was loose, her rainbow-hued hair flying this way and that.

Park played the same concerto she’d been playing for months, skipping happy hours and even a trip home to Australia to ready herself for concerts in mid-February. A concerto by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, who won a Grammy last week. A concerto that the Minnesota Orchestra might not have programmed if not for Park, who has helped lead efforts to diversify its repertoire.

And what a piece! “Altar de Cuerda” is fierce and fiery in some moments, eerie and earthy in others.

“It’s been a thrill and exciting and a little bit nerve-racking,” said Park, the orchestra’s first associate concertmaster. “But that’s part of what makes it fun, right? If you’re comfortable, you’re not growing.”

Preparing the concerto has consumed Park this season, said former Minnesota Orchestra violist Sam Bergman, a friend. “Frankly, with a piece that difficult, there’s always a temptation to cut corners ... ” he said, “to say, well, the composer probably didn’t expect me to actually be able to play all these notes ... this part’s more of an effect. ...

“And Susie just doesn’t truck in that kind of corner-cutting. She’s going to go at it until she can do it.”

Which isn’t to say that Park is strictly serious. Park is joyful, too. Bergman counts among his prized possessions a video of Park laughing nonstop for three minutes.

“The hair is like that for a reason,” he said.

Growing up in Sydney, the daughter of Korean immigrants, Park was a rambunctious toddler whose parents would suddenly discover her atop a bookshelf. “But they noticed that when I heard music, I would get quiet,” she said, “and sit next to the speaker until the end of the record.”

She’d hear a melody once and sing it back.

At 3, Park picked up a violin — and refused to put it down. At 5, she made her solo debut.

Her mother, a seamstress, sewed her little outfits for her performances. She, in turn, harmonized with her mother’s Juki sewing machine.

Park was living and performing in New York when she came to Minnesota to sub with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. “The SPCO was trying to woo her,” said Erin Keefe, longtime concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra, who knew Park from their time at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. But Keefe’s orchestra was looking for an associate concertmaster, her second in command.

Though Park was more focused on chamber music then, “I convinced her to take the audition,” Keefe said. “It was very apparent that she was a star.”

She started with the orchestra in 2015, becoming indispensable in the two very different roles required of a first associate concertmaster: Keefe’s mirror and a leader in her own right. Park has “incredible radar,” Keefe said. “She anticipates everything I’m going to do. ... If I tilt my head ever so slightly, she will start counting out loud,” she continued.

“She’s a dream stand partner. I’d be lost without her.”

In 2020, when COVID-19 struck and George Floyd was murdered, Park was chair of the orchestra’s artistic advisory committee. Big, orchestral pieces were scrapped for smaller, chamber ensemble works. Musicians performed inside an empty hall, then outside.

“Susie basically had to rebuild a season,” Bergman said. “And she very aggressively went in and said, ‘I don’t think there should be a week without a composer of color.’”

She took “some slings and arrows,” he continued, but stood strong.

Still, programming composers of color was tricky, partly because in some cases, there weren’t always recordings of their works.

“That is such a crucial part of figuring out what you want to program,” Park said. “All these other pieces that are standard rep, you know it already. But stuff that hasn’t been heard yet or was heard and then put away... if there isn’t an archive or recording of it, it’s like it didn’t exist.”

So the orchestra began recording unrecorded works, offering them up to ensembles that might program them. The Listening Project, as it is now known, has attracted national attention. One of the big concerns was that by creating this once-a-year thing that was filled with the music of Black composers, “it can come off as segregating the repertoire,” said Bergman, who co-led the project.

“What made it possible for us to do the project was the push by Susie and her colleagues to broaden the programming throughout the year.”

And that’s happened, by several measures. The total number of minutes by diverse composers the orchestra will play during its classical, subscription season in 2024-25 is 228, about 12% of the total season. That compares with 163 minutes, or about 9%, in 2021-22.

The number of works by female composers in that classical season, which doesn’t include family, film or other concerts, has doubled in the past three years.

“Doing that project with Sam and doing all that work around diversity really helped bolster my feeling of belonging,” Park said, “and feeling like I actually could make an impact and create change.”

Park had been eyeing Ortiz’s “Altar de Cuerda” for the Listening Project. But then it got a major recording, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic as part of “Revolución diamantina,” the first full album of works by Ortiz, which won several Grammy awards.

Preparing for the February concerts, Park has worked to condition herself for every possible variable — in her body, in the orchestra, in the hall. Some musicians strive for control and perfection, but Park looks to listen and adapt.

“You have to trust the process,” she said. “It’s good to get to a place where you feel solid in your own heart, and then whatever happens. ... ”

She bent her knees, bobbing left, then right.

“You don’t know what’s going to come, but you’ll be able to handle it, no matter what.” She smiled and released a peal of laughter. “Hopefully!”

When: 8 p.m. Fri., 7 p.m. Sat.

Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.

Tickets: $15-$84; minnesotaorchestra.org

Streaming: Friday’s performance will be broadcast live on Twin Cities PBS (TPT 2) and YourClassical MPR, and streamed for free through the orchestra’s website and social media channels.