Youna Choi

Biography

Youna Choi has featured internationally throughout Korea and the United States. She has frequently been featured in Carnegie Hall in New York, as well as the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Marine Biological Laboratory, and Nantucket Atheneum in Massachusetts as a soloist and also as a chamber musician. Her accomplishments include prizes and scholarships from David Weiss Scholarship Competition, Rio Hondo Competition, and numerous national competitions in Korea.

As a founding member of the Three Strings Ensemble, she performed numerous recital series sponsored by the city of Seoul, and the ensemble was nominated as a winner of the Manhattan International Music Competition. The ensemble will perform in Carnegie Hall for a winner’s concert in 2021.

She has recently debuted Walton Cello Concerto with Colburn Orchestra as a winner of the Concerto Competition at the Ambassador Auditorium with Maestro Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony. Ms. Choi has also performed under the baton of conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Rossen Milanov, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Robert Spano, Osmo Vänska, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Ms.Choi studied the cello with Peter Wiley and Carter Brey at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned a bachelor’s degree. And she subsequently studied with Clive Greensmith at Colburn Conservatory of Music, where she received an Artist Diploma and Master of Music. She has been appointed as the principal cellist of New West Symphony Orchestra as of 2019.