Timothy Chooi

Timothy Chooi (Chinese: 徐任良; pinyin: Xú Rèn Liáng, born December 17, 1993) is a Canadian-Americanviolinist. He is the Second Prize Winner of the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Belgium and the First Prize Winner of the 2018 Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition in Hannover, Germany. He also won top prizes at the International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition, Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand as well as the Grand Prize Award of the 2010 Montreal Standard Life Competition.

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. He made his orchestral debut at the age of seven performing with his brother and the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. 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, Alberta, Canada. Chooi commuted by airplane once every two weeks to Calgary in order to attend his highschool in Victoria, British Columbia. 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 with Ida Kavafian. A few months after enrolling at the Curtis Institute of Music, Chooi was awarded the Grand Prize award at the2010 Montreal Standard Life Competitionand made his concerto debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jean Francois Rivest. 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 NDR Radiophilharmonie, Brussels Philharmonic, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Santa Barbara Symphony and Sichuan Symphony Orchestrato name a few. He has shared the international stage with artists and conductors such as Pinchas Zukerman,Stéphane Denève Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Yoav Talmi, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Kent Nagano and Benjamin Zander.

He received his Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School studying with Catherine Cho Curtis Institute of Music under the tutelage of Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank and has previously studied with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec at the National Arts Centre inOttawa, Canada. He lives in New York City, United States

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, Quebec, Canada
• 2012 Winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Music Instrument Bank, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 2013 Recipient of the Vadim Repin Scholarship Award, New York City, USA
• 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, Ontario, Canada
• 2018 First Prize Winner of the Schadt Violin Competition, Allentown, USA
• 2018 Winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Music Instrument Bank, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 2018 First Prize Winner of the Joseph Joachim Violin Competition of Hannover, Germany
• 2019 Second Prize Winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Brussels, Belgium