18th Century Violins and 20th Century Anime: Millennial Violinist Timothy Chooi Reaches New Audiences Through YouTube
Timothy Chooi | Credit: Den Sweeney
When Timothy Chooi won the Grand Prize at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Standard Life Competition in 2010, he was one of the youngest award winners. Chooi has won numerous major awards in the decade that followed, including the International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition in Hanover, the Prix Yves Paternot at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival, first prize at the Schadt Violin Competition in the United States, and second prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium.
This millennial musician with a popular YouTube channel completed a European tour in October 2021 and soon after we caught up to discuss how he straddles two worlds and cultures, and how popular social media makes classical music accessible.
Timothy Chooi Living and Playing Across Borders
When Timothy Chooi’s parents immigrated to Victoria, British Columbia they wanted their two sons to have well rounded childhoods. The children played baseball, basketball, and soccer, and although neither parent came from a musical background, both boys began playing piano and violin.
“They wanted us to have normal lives and have choices, but the violin was something that just stuck out for both of us and it became a very serious hobby,” Chooi shares.
At the age of 16, he was accepted into one of the most selective private conservatories in America, following after his older brother Nikki to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. After seven years of study at Curtis and a subsequent Master’s degree at the Juilliard School under Catherine Cho, this dual citizen of Canada and the United States became a professor of violin at the University of Ottawa in 2021.
“I’ve lived in the U.S. for over twelve years, but Canada always treats me like one of their own,” Chooi states about his returns to his native Canada. “I've always felt this openness with Canadian society and this includes the most recent addition to my career, becoming a professor at the University of Ottawa. It’s a great honor to teach at a university, especially in the nation's capital, with a whole generation of young musicians who will carry on this tradition.”
But it is not only his Canadian-American connections that define Chooi as an artist embodying different cultures and identities. His father, a computer technician, and his mother, who studied mathematics before raising her sons, are both Chinese but born in Indonesia and Malaysia. Well versed in familial traditions, customs, and languages, Chooi’s core identity becomes more pronounced when he travels.
“Being born in North America, I feel very mixed,” Chooi explains. “When I’m in Asia, I feel more Western than when I am in North America, and when I am in Canada or the U.S. I feel more connected to my Asian background.”
Although this may be alienating at times, the jovial Chooi also sees opportunities to make a welcoming community for other Asian American classical musicians.
“It can be confusing because you're never quite Asian enough, and you're never quite westernized enough. In the future, I want to better incorporate all sides of myself,” he shares. “I want to expand my reach into East Asia, but first and more importantly, I want to reach out to the Asian American community of musicians and listeners in North America. That’s a priority for me.”
Chooi’s Choice of Instrument
Chooi plays a 1717 Stradivarius that he has had in his possession for the last seven years.
“The Windsor-Weinstein is a beautiful instrument,” Chooi says. “It's very direct. It speaks very quickly. It's clean sounding, very bright. It clangs, it’s resonant, it’s crisp. It’s unexpected but I don't think many people would understand until they hear it.”
On loan from the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank, a competition held every three years to temporarily gift extraordinary musicians with a vintage instrument created by masters of the craft, the Stradivarius is Chooi’s second three-year loan of this violin (plus an extra pandemic year).
“It took me at least two and a half years before I understood this instrument, and that's why I decided to choose itt again in my second term,” Chooi states. “It’s like a relationship–but one that I already know isn’t going to last. The first year, you think you know each other, but you really don't.”
Over time, however, Chooi learned to listen to his instrument, to understand it, and to work together. “The last three years have been a beautiful relationship.”
He previously played a 1729 Guarnieri del Gesù, “lesser known because of their rarity but a really fantastic instrument,” through the same program. Soon, he will start his next relationship. The 2021 Recipient of the Nippon Music Foundation Rare Instrument Loan in Japan, Chooi will soon have another seven year loan.
Timothy Chooi: A YouTube Star Is Born
While studying music in Victoria, BC, Chooi had moments of feeling disconnected and discouraged as a young musician.
“I just didn't know if this was the right path, and the one thing that kept me on that path was YouTube, which was still pretty new,” Chooi explains. “All of a sudden, I had video footage of all these huge names that we always hear about and I could now visit Carnegie Hall or Berliner Philharmonie. YouTube really opened my eyes and I realized that there was a whole world of how music could be presented far beyond my local community center.”
After school as a teenager, Chooi would rush to his room and instead of playing video games, he would open his laptop, fire up YouTube, and watch Sibelius’ Violin Concerto performed by Sarah Chang, Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto by Hilary Hahn, or Itzhak Perlman playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.
“It was such an impactful part of my life,” Chooi claims. “Future generations will never quite understand how that revolutionized communication, entertainment, and art–for better or worse. For worse, in the sense that it can strip away the control and ownership, but in the best sense, it's inspiring and encourages the next musicians.”
Now, Chooi has his own YouTube channel with over 7,000 subscribers (that is, he could fill Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium two and a half times). With buzzy titles like “7 things I wish I knew before I became a Professional Musician” and “6 Things Every Musician Should Know,” and catchy opening graphics, Chooi posts new videos frequently and directly addresses the audience in a conversational manner, offering astute guidance to younger musicians in a friendly format and with a friendlier smile.
“Hopefully, I can also encourage that kid somewhere in a small town to keep playing, to keep listening to classical music,” he states about his edutainment series.
His most popular video “Can You Hear the Difference Between $60 and 6 Million Dollar Violin?” has been viewed over 235,000 times. Sometimes he asks a question about price points, plays on different instruments, and lets the listener decide the comparative value (the replies become quite heated!). Other times, Chooi creates an educational video as in his detailed comparison of differently priced bows, or when he explains the high cost of the above 1717 Stradivarius as a rare piece of art, its reputation, the sound quality, and as an artist prize. There are many shorter musical passages that are friendly for those newer to classical music and full symphonic performances, too.
“If you really want to watch the most classical side of me, there's a recording of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto playing with the Belgian National Orchestra in Brussels [at the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Competition],” Chooi states. “But, the other side of me that is captured in a cover of an anime called Howl’s Moving Castle. Those are two completely different sides of me, and I'm super proud about both of those recordings.”
Sailor Moon Suite
One of Chooi’s most innovative projects to date is a micro commission for Astral, one of Philadelphia’s most critically acclaimed concert series, in January 2022.
“The wonderful thing about Astral is that we're always trying to innovate and figure out a way how classical music performances can continue to progress, including investing in a new commission as a safe, musical playground to try out new ideas,” Chooi states.
The program includes Chooi performing one of the most difficult violin solos in Chinese composer Chen Gang’s Sunshine Over Tashkurgan and Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major by Prokofiev.
Chooi will also have the opportunity to present about the VISION Collective, the nonprofit he founded with two colleagues from Julliard, cellist Drake Driscoll and violinist Sarah Sung. The VISION Collective uses classical music to build relations between refugees and new Americans, talking with refugees to develop new works based on their experiences, performing music from their homelands, and creating musical workshops.
The centerpiece of the program includes the world premiere of Sailor Moon Fantasy by Carle Jordan Wirshba. Working with a composer on developing a new work is both novel and invigorating for Chooi.
“This is just a whole new level of interaction for me as a musician because I actually have a choice by working with Carl, and he can come back to me with something else.”
Inspired by his childhood (and ongoing) love of anime, Chooi and Wirshba bonded over their mutual admiration for the soundtracks from various anime, including the ubiquitous 1990s series Sailor Moon.
“Sailor Moon is very operatic and has a really fabulous soundtrack,” Chooi shares. “The anime is also about the solar system, which Carl and I were both obsessed with as kids. We decided to make a small suite called the Sailor Moon Suite for violin and piano [with Astal laureate pianist Sejoon Park]. It really plays up the different planets and stars associated with the heroines.”
With his acclaimed virtuosic performances and his affable reach to diverse and younger audiences through YouTube, the stars may be in reach for this incredibly talented violinist.
