“Laura Elise Schwendinger’s “Song for Andrew” (2008) pays tribute to her teacher Andrew Imbrie, who died in 2007, by wrapping a theme from his “Pilgrimage” (1983) in her own harmonization and gradually taking it into her own rhythmic and harmonic world. The piece is darkly attractive, artful and moving, and the ensemble, a piano quartet, played with the warmth and soulfulness it demanded.”
Alicia holds degrees from Williams College and the Juilliard School. She is currently a doctoral candidate in violin performance at McGill University Schulich School of Music. Her main dissertation research is focused on the performance and pedagogy of the string quartet genre in North American higher education institutions.
Korean-American violinist Alicia Choi is a passionate performer and engaging educator of chamber music based in Montreal, Canada.
Her upcoming season includes performance engagements in Canada (Montreal, QC; Fredericton, NB; Toronto, ON) as well as the United States (New York, NY; San Francisco, CA). Recent performances include concerts in the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, New Brunswick Summer Music Festival and at Salle Bourgie Musée des Beaux-arts de Montréal. Her previous solos with orchestra include performances with Atlantic Music Festival, Berkshire Symphony, and Queens Symphony Orchestras under conductors Ronald Feldman, Constantine Kitsopoulos, and Julian Kuerti.
Alicia currently teaches at McGill University Schulich School of Music, as an instructor of chamber music, coach for the McGill Symphony Orchestra sectionals, and the teaching assistant for the newly developed String Quartet Seminar for incoming first-year undergraduates. In the academic year of 2019 to 2020, she will also teach as an instructor of violin at the McGill Conservatory; as well as Chamber Music by Women Composers, a graduate-level music course she is currently developing at McGill University. Alicia has previously served as an Artistic Director and Faculty of the inaugural Harlaxton Chamber Music Festival in Grantham England, as well as performing and teaching faculty at the University of Florida ChamberFest, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop, and Camp Musical Père Lindsay in Saint-Côme, Québec.
From 2013 to 2017, Alicia was an Artist-in-Residence Faculty of the University of Evansville, Associate Concertmaster of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, and a member of the Larchmere String Quartet. In addition to her various orchestral, quartet, and solo performances, she developed and coached the high school and undergraduate chamber music courses, held masterclasses, and taught sectionals for the Evansville Philharmonic Youth Orchestras and the University of Evansville Orchestra. As a member of the LSQ, Alicia has toured and taught in various North American cities and institutions; performed at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy; won the Evansville Mayor’s Arts Ensemble Award; and released the first commercial recording of the Stephan Krehl String Quartet, op. 17 and Clarinet Quintet, op. 19 with clarinetist Wonkak Kim on the Naxos label.
“True enough, Korngold, best known for his film scores, based his concerto on themes from four of those movies, and as Choi seized your attention with her technical flair and gleaming tone, you could almost forget the Hollywood imagery screening before your eyes.”