Performer Biographies

Taeguk Mun was born in 1994 in South Korea, where he began his cello studies with Young Rim Yang at the age of four. He was the first-place winner of the Young Soloist Competition of the Queens Symphony (2010), the Juilliard School Pre-college Division Cello Concerto Competition (2009), the New York Music Competition, the Fourth International Competition for Youth (2007) in Oldenburg, Germany, and was grand prize winner of the National Sung-Jung Music Competition in Korea. He was also a prize winner in the Irving M. Klein International String Competition (2010) and the 6th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.

Mr. Mun has participated in master classes led by Marcel Bardon, Myung-Wha Chung, Lluís Claret, Karine Georgian, Bernard Greenhouse, Paul Katz, Ronald Leonard, Laurence Lesser, Aldo Parisot, and Sungwon Yang, and has received full scholarships to attend the Perlman Music Program in 2008, 2009, and 2010. He has participated twice in the Great Mountains Music Festival in Korea, first in 2007, and again in 2011 with a full scholarship.

In 2009 he participated in MusicAlp in Courchevel, France. He also has participated in Orford Festival 2011 in Canada's Mount Orford Provincial Park. Mr. Mun has played solo performances in Korea, France, Germany, and the United States, at such venues as the Gyeonggi Arts Center in Korea, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Paul Hall, Morse Hall, and Peter Jay Sharp Theater of The Juilliard School, and the Port Washington Public Library in New York. He has played solo performances with the Juilliard School Pre-College Symphony and the Massapequa Philharmonic Orchestra in New York, the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra with Maestro Daejin Kim as the conductor and also with the Great Mountains Music Festival and School Orchestra in Korea.

He has been featured on From the Top, the NPR-PBS series on classical music, as both a soloist and a member of the Maggiore Trio from the Juilliard School Pre-college Division; he was a 2011 recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. Mr. Mun also has been selected to play for the Young Artist Lunch Concert Series in the Louvre Museum in France in the 2013–14 or 2014–15 season. He is studying with Minhye Clara Kim as a full scholarship student in The Juilliard School's Pre-College Division.

A seasoned performer at the ripe old age of ten, Elli Choi was born in San Diego and began her violin studies at age three. Only a year later she was invited to the Suzuki Method World Convention in Turin, Italy. A soloist by age five, she performed with the Korean Symphony Orchestra in Seoul. When she was seven, Ms. Choi performed the Mendelsshon Violin Concerto in E Minor with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Premier Music College in Prague at the 5th Dubai International Peace Music Festival. She was eight when she performed Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole and Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy with the Prague Youth Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ladislav Cigler at Dvorak Hall in Rudolfinum, Czech Republic, and toured with them again last spring, performing Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1.

Last June she appeared as the soloist for a concert by the Ocean City (New Jersey) Pops Orchestra, conducted by William Scheible, and in December, she performed with Ensemble 212 in New York City. Since she was seven, Ms. Choi has been a student in the Pre-College Division of The Juilliard School, where she studies with Hyo Kang and I Hao Lee. In addition she has studied with Susanna Han at the Suzuki Heritage Center, Kimberly Fisher of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Matthias Fisher of Staatskapelle Berlin, Igor Ozim of Mozarteum Salzburg, and Zahkar Bron of Koln, Germany. Ms. Choi has performed at the Mann Music Center, Verizon Hall of Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra), the Mozarteum Salzburg in Austria, the San Diego Civic Theater, and the Stradivari Society in Chicago. She has performed three solo recitals and participated in numerous music festivals and master classes. In 2010 she was the grand prize winner at the Philadelphia International Music Festival. Ms. Choi is the youngest recipient of an instrument from the Stradivari Society in Chicago; she is playing a three-quarter-sized violin by made Joseph Rocca of Turin in 1852.