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Students, Faculty + Alumni

YSM students successful in 2009 Koussevitzky Young Artists Awards

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Flutist Yoobin Son '09MM won second prize and clarinetist Paul Won Jin Cho '09MM took home third in the 2009 Koussevitzky Young Artists Awards.

Cho performed the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto, the same piece with which he recently won the Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition at Yale.

Every spring, the Musicians Club of New York holds a competition for young artists between the ages of eighteen and thirty. The categories – Voice, Piano, Strings, and Winds/Brass – are rotated annually; the 2009 category was Winds and Brass. Cash prizes and concert performances are awarded to the first, second and third prize winners, selected by juries of prominent musicians.

Yoobin Son hails from Sungnam, Korea. She is currently the acting principal flute of the New Haven Symphony while pursuing her Masters degree at the Yale School of Music with Ransom Wilson. She graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2007, where she studied with Jeffrey Khaner, principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Ms.Son began playing flute at the age of 9. Last summer, she participated at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival where she had the opportunity to play chamber music in ensembles with renowned musicians. In 2006 and 2007, she was one of a dozen students from Curtis appointed as a Young Artist in Residence at the Music from Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico. Also in the summer of 2006, she participated in the Pacific Music Festival in Japan led by Maestro Valery Gergiev, principal conductor of the London symphony Orchestra. She was principal flute of the New York String Orchestra(2005), and has attended master classes with such eminent flutists as Maxence Larrieu, Phillppe Bernold, Jeanne Baxtresser, Julius Baker, Ransom Wilson, and Vincent Lucas. In additions to her many recitals in the United States and Korea, Ms. Son has performed as a soloist with New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, William Paterson University Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic. cho_paul1

Paul Won Jin Cho received his Bachelor’s degree in music from the Korean National University of Arts and his Master’s degree from Seoul National University. He finished his Graduate Certificate program in the University of Southern California under the distinguished teacher Yehuda Gilad. Cho has won awards in numerous competitions, including first place in the Busan Competition as well as the Donga Competition in Korea. He was the recipient of the 2006 Leni Fe Bland Music Scholarship Award, and recently he won the Woolsey Hall Competition and received the 52nd Koussevitzky Young Artists Awards. He has also been invited to solo with Busan Philharmonic Orchestra, Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, and Torrance Symphony Orchestra.  As an orchestra member, he has performed under many renowned conductors, including Stefan Asbury, Sergiu Commissiona, Myung Hoon Chung, Placido Domingo, James Levine, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Alexander Treger, and Benjamin Zander. Cho is currently studying with prestigious soloist David Shifrin at Yale School of Music.