Upcoming Concerts 21/22

Holly Hyun Choe is the Music Director of the Orchesterverein Wiedikon and the University of St. Gallen Alumni Symphony Orchestra (HSG ASO).

She is also the Assistant Conductor of Paavo Järvi at the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich since Season 20/21 and with an extension to Season 21/22.

In 2021 August, she made her debut at the Elbphilharmonie Großer Saal in Hamburg with the Ensemble Reflektor and rising cellist, Anastasia Kobekina through the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Additionally last summer, she was the Guest Conductor for the Camerata - DAVOS Festival in Switzerland and reinvited for Summer 2022.

Highlights of this 21/22 Season includes engagements with Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, Orchestre de Paris, Picardie Orchestre, Montenegro Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Wald Ensemble, Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, and Orchestre des amateurs des ateliers de la Philharmonie de Paris. 

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Her 22/23 Season will include debuts at the Komische Oper Berlin, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Staatstheater Hannover, Hofer Symphoniker, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and Kammerakademie Potsdam.

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She has assisted notable conductors such as Paavo Järvi in Orchestre de Paris, Leonard Slatkin in Orchestre national de Lyon, Simone Young in Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne/Zürich Opernhaus, Karina Canellakis in Gürzenich Orchester Köln, and Frank Strobel at Orchestre de Paris.

     
Holly has participated in masterclasses with conductors including Bernard Haitink, Jorma Panula, Neeme Järvi, Jaap van Zweden, Simone Young, Marin Alsop, Teodor Currentzis, Sian Edwards, Jessica Montgomery Cottis, and David Reiland.

Going beyond the standard canon of classical music, she was involved in projects such as performing with a 3D printer as a part of the live performance in a piece written by Stefan Bachmann - "Black Wire Concertina #1-5."  

She has also given world-premieres of living composers from Switzerland, Greece, Mexico, Sweden, China, France, South Korea, and the USA. 

As part of her mission to promote women composers, she has performed works by composers Emilie Meyer, Grazyna Bacewicz, Jennifer Higdon, Clarice Assad, Jessie Montgomery, Caroline Shaw, and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

Her passion for music extends also to education and healthcare; she currently teaches beginning conducting courses at ZHdK as well as the PreCollege conducting students. She has also presented conducting seminars in elementary schools, elderly nursing homes, a center for adults with disabilities, Immigrant Family Services Institute for Haitian Immigrants, and as a guest artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Arts Museum in Boston, MA (USA). With an interest in neuroscience, she envisions supporting research in the integration of music in healthcare.

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She holds a conducting fellowship in the German Music Council’s Forum Dirigieren - as a conductor on the Künstlerliste 2021/22. She was an Award Recipient of the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship (2019-21), and a former Conducting Mentee of the Peter Eötvös Foundation Mentoring Program (2020-21).

​In 2020, Holly received a "Career Assistance Award" from the Solti Foundation in the United States.  

Holly was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in California, USA. She began her musical journey as a self-taught clarinetist aged thirteen and received her first private music lesson at age nineteen. She received a full-tuition scholarship toward her Bachelor's Degree in Clarinet Performance and Music Education at the Bob Cole Conservatory in Long Beach, CA. Her first Master's Degree in Wind Conducting was completed at the New England Conservatory with Charles Peltz and her orchestral conducting Master's Degree at the Zurich University of the Arts with Johannes Schlaefli.