Holly Hyun Choe

Holly Hyun Choe was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in California, USA. Her Assistant Conductor position of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich has been extended to Season 21/22 under the guidance of Maestro Paavo Järvi.

In Summer 2021, she made her debut at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg with the Ensemble Reflektor at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Additionally, she was the guest conductor for the DAVOS Festival in Switzerland and reinvited for Summer 2022. Highlights of the 2021/22 season include engagements with Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestre de Paris, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Wald Ensemble at Festivals de Wallonie, Danubia Orchestra Óbuda at Budapest Palace of Arts, and Orchestre de Picardie.

Recently, Holly Hyun Choe has worked with Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, Collegium Musicum Basel, and has led Ensemble Reflektor at Alte Oper Frankfurt with a Beethoven programme in 2020. Already while studying at the Zurich University of the Arts, she conducted international orchestras such as the Orchestre national de Metz, Trondheim Symphony, Heidelberg Symphony, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Pilsen Opera Orchestra, and Izmir State Symphony Orchestra. 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, and Karina Canellakis in Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, and participated in masterclasses with Bernard Haitink, Jorma Panula, Neeme Järvi, Jaap van Zweden, Simone Young, Marin Alsop, Teodor Currentzis, Sian Edwards, Jessica Montgomery Cottis, and David Reiland.

As part of her concern to promote women composers, she has presented Jennifer Higdon, Grazyna Bacewicz, and Jessie Montgomery with the Orchesterverein Wiedikon. She is the Music Director of the Orchesterverein Wiedikon as well as the University of St. Gallen Alumni Symphony Orchestra. Her passion for music extends also to education and healthcare; she has presented conducting seminars in elementary schools, elderly nursing homes, a centre 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. With an interest in neuroscience, she envisions supporting research in the integration of music in healthcare.

Holly Hyun Choe holds a conducting fellowship in the German Music Council’s Dirigentenforum - recently advancing to the "Maestros von Morgen" list. She is also 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, she received a "Career Assistance Award" from the Solti Foundation in the United States.

Holly Hyun Choe 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.