One of the most sought-after pianists of her generation, the South Korean HieYon Choi first appeared on the international piano music scene when she won prizes at high-profile competitions such as Kapell, Epinal, Busoni and Viotti. HieYon Choi has since performed with some of the prestigious orchestras of Europe, the United States and Korea such as das Rundfunkorchester Berlin, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington DC), Royal Northern Sinfonia, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Korean Broadcast Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared as a soloist in festivals and concert series.
A milestone of HieYon’s performing career was the four-year long cycle of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas at Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. For this series she received the Arts Award of the year 2005 from the Korean Arts & Cultural Association. Ten years later she completed another Beethoven cycle with all piano trios, violin sonatas and works for cello and piano. She then completed her second cycle of all Beethoven piano sonatas in 2018 which took place in various venues in Korea, Germany and the United States.
Her other performance series include ones that explore Brahms and French music. She has collaborated with renowned musicians such as Truls Mørk, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Peter Stumpf, Romain Guyot, Stephan Dohr, Ulf Wallin, Mikyung Lee and Soovin Kim.
HieYon was the inaugural Artist in Residence of Tongyeong International Music festival. HieYon is also a founder of Academy2021, a contemporary music series at Seoul National University. Her discography includes Beethoven Sonatas (Decca Korea), Debussy Etudes (UMG), Chopin Etudes (Aulos), Liszt Paganini Etudes (Parke Davis).
She graduated from the Hochschule der Künste Berlin (Prof. Klaus Hellwig, Prof. Hans Leygraf) and Indiana University (Prof. György Sebök). She joined the piano faculty at Seoul National University in 1999. Since then, she has been giving numerous master classes and courses internationally and also served as a jury member at international competitions such as Epinal, Orléans, Pozzoli and Maj Lind.
