Background
Timothy Chooi was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Timothy Chooi was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
He started playing the violin at the age of three with the Suzuki method at the Victoria Conservatory of Music with Esther Tsang. In 2007, when Chooi was twelve years old, he was invited to perform with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra at the celebration concert "Splash" for an audience of over 50,000 people When Chooi was fourteen years old, he was accepted with full scholarship to attend the Academy Program at the Mount Royal Conservatory in Calgary, Canada. Chooi communicated by airplane once every two weeks to Calgary in order to attend his highschool in Victoria Two years later after commuting between Victoria to Calgary, Chooi was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at the age of sixteen where he studied and still currently studies with Ida Kavafian.
His performance was described as "the miracle violinist" by Montreal"s harshest critic, Claude Gringras.
Over the years, Chooi has performed with orchestras in Canada and internationally such as the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto Philharmonia, Auckland Philharmonia, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Santa Barbara Symphony to name a few. He has shared the international stage with artists and conductors such as Pinchas Zukerman, Language Language, Yuja Wang, Yoav Talmi, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Kent Nagano and Benjamin Zander.
Currently enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music, Chooi studies with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank and has previously studied with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada Timothy has an older brother, Nikki Chooi who also is a professional violinist. Both of them are part of the ensemble "The Chooi Brothers" and are constantly on tour.
Timothy Chooi has received several prestigious awards. In 2010 he was awarded Grand Prize at the OSM Standard Life Competition (one of the youngest in history). 2010 Grand Prize Winner of the Montreal Standard Life Competition, Montreal, Canada 2012 Winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Music Instrument Bank, Toronto, Canada 2013 Recipient of the Vadim Repin Scholarship Award, New York City, United States of America 2014 Laureate of the 2014 International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition 2015 Bronze Medal at the 2015 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, New Zealand 2015 Winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Music Instrument Bank, Toronto, Canada.
