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Holly Hyun Choe is appointed Directrice musicale of the Orchestre national de Cannes.
Holly Hyun Choe becomes Principal Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.
The album LAUTER! with the Ensemble Reflektor under the direction of its Principal Conductor Holly Hyun Choe, released at the end of November, presents works by Ethel Smyth, inti figgis-vizueta and Ying Wang.
Marta Kowalcuk, Uraufführung
Amy Beach, Concerto, Piano, op.45, C-sharp minor
Aaron Copland, Danzón Cubano
George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue (full orchestra, 1942)
Silvestre Revueltas, Sensemayá
Holly Hyun Choe, conductor
Ying Li, piano
Philharmonisches Orchester Kiel
Gordon Kampe, WUM und BUM und die Damen DING DONG
Gürzenich-Orchester Köln
Claude Debussy, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Maurice Ravel, La Valse
Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique
Folkwang SYMPHONY
Emmanuel Chabrier, Habanera
Ernest Chausson, Poème de l’amour et de la mer
Johannes Brahms, Sinfonie No. 1
Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria
Airam Hernández, tenor
Holly Hyun Choe, born in South Korea and raised in Los Angeles, impresses with her presence and radiance on the podium. She is recipient of the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award 2025 and designated chief conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (KORK), with whom she will give her inaugural concert in January 2026 with Beethoven's 3rd Symphony. In October 2025, Orchestre national de Cannes has appointed her new directrice musicale with the beginning of the 2026/27 season.
A sought-after guest conductor in both the United States and Europe, Holly Hyun Choe will make her debut with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and the Gürzenich Orchestra this season. She will also make her first appearance before Korean audiences with the Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra in April 2026 as part of the Seoul Arts Centre Orchestra Festival. Other highlights of the season include subscription concerts with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and her final concert as Artiste associée with the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève – in this role, she conducted Gerald Barry's opera Alice's Adventures Under Ground at the Grand Théâtre de Genève last season.
A significant debut in her hometown Los Angeles stands out among her engagements in the past seasons: As a Dudamel Fellow, Holly Hyun Choe conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the first time in May 2025. She also returned to the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre de Paris and the Kammerakademie Potsdam, and was a guest with other prestigious orchestras, among them Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.
As part of her commitment to promoting female composers, Holly Hyun Choe regularly programmes works by Clarice Assad, Grażyna Bacewicz, Lili Boulanger, Britta Byström, Louise Farrenc, Fanny Hensel, Jennifer Higdon, Jessie Montgomery, Caroline Shaw, Dobrinka Tabakova, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Galina Ustvolskaya. She recorded Ethel Smyth's Serenade for the album Lauter together with the Ensemble Reflektor, where she served as principal conductor for three years.
Holly Hyun Choe completed her studies with Prof. Johannes Schlaefli at the Zurich University of the Arts in 2023. Her musical journey began self-taught: she learned to play the clarinet at the age of 13 and only received her first private music lessons at the age of 19. In 2015, she completed a master’s degree with Prof. Charles Peltz at the New England Conservatory. She has participated in master classes with Bernhard Haitink, Jorma Panula, Fabio Luisi, Peter Eötvös, Sylvia Caduff, and Jaap van Zweden, and has assisted Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Simone Young, François-Xavier Roth, and Karina Canellakis before spending two years as assistant conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra under Paavo Järvi.
In 2018, she was selected for the German Music Council's Forum Dirigieren; she has also been supported by a Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation, a scholarship from the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, and as a participant in the Peter Eötvös Foundation Mentoring Programme.
2025/2026 season
"The orchestra and conductor are enchanting in Mozart's "Prague Symphony" (No. 38, K. 504), which is not played quite as much. The TSOI's interpretation is crystal clear"
Tiroler Zeitung, Markus Schramek,21.4.2024
"And the way Holly Hyun Choe performs Beethoven's 3rd Leonore Overture with the NTO, dense, compact, dramatically painted in the Adagio, finely chiselled or swinging and springy in the Allegro (…) - this is the highest category of symphonic music-making."
Mannheimer Morgen, Stefan M. Dettlinger, 9.4.2024
“Under the motivating direction of Holly Hyun Choe, the young instrumentalists filled the uninterrupted slowness of the seven movements (…) with crackling tension: it was a pleasure to hear this touching music in the mirror of constantly changing tone colours.”
Esslinger Zeitung, Rainer Kellmayer, 2/5/2023
“The interpretation [of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony] by Holly Hyun Choe is captivating. She begins cautiously, without straining the slow introduction. In the Vivace and all that follows, she achieves high energy and shadings that transmit chamber music-like intimacy. The orchestra follows her, brilliantly disposed, carried by the timpani as a resonant foundation.”
Tagesspiegel, Sybill Mahlke, 15/10/2022
“In this location, too, it is more than just assiduous fun to listen to this combination. This is also due to (...) guest conductor Holly Hyun Choe, whose energetic conducting shows that she is Paavo Järvi's assistant in Zurich. She ensures evident precision and keeps the fire burning. Thus the E minor symphony becomes a listening adventure, and the not quite large orchestra enlivens this rarity with vigour and enthusiasm. Applause and encore for Ensemble Reflektor. As is sometimes the case with insider tips: the really good ones should not remain secret for too long.”
Hamburger Abendblatt, Joachim Mischke, 7/4/2022
“The orchestra mastered the turn to the baroque (…) in style. With Holly Hyun Choe at the helm, the sound remained transparent and coherent even at high tempi, as is the case when performance ability and passion come together.”
Landeszeitung für die Lüneburger Heide, Hans-Martin Koch, 7/4/2022
B. Byström, J. Brahms, A. Pärt, D. Šostakovič
Schumann
Brahms: Symphony No. 4, I. Allegro non troppo
Orchestre National de Metz
Wald Ensemble, recorded on 30 September 2021Flagey Hall, Brussels, Belgium
M. Karlowicz: Serenade for Strings, Op. 2, September 2021
Wald Ensemble, recorded on 30th September 2021Flagey Hall, Brüssel, Belgien
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9, II. Largo
Filharmonie Hradec Králové
Alberto Navarra (flute); Claudia Lucia Lamanna (harp); Odense Symphony Orchestra;Holly Hyun Choe (conductor), Orchid Classics, Orchid Classics