Jasmine Choi facts for kids

Jasmine Choi (born May 23, 1983, in Seoul, South Korea) is a talented flautist. She grew up in Korea, studied music in the United States, and now lives in Austria. She is known for her amazing flute playing.

Becoming a Flute Star

Jasmine Choi grew up in Daejeon, South Korea. She loved music and went to two famous schools in the US to study the flute. These were the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School. She studied there from 2000 to 2004. Some of her teachers were famous flautists like Julius Baker and Jeffrey Khaner.

While she was still a student in 2002, Jasmine won a big competition. It was called the Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition, and the Philadelphia Orchestra helped put it on. In 2006, Symphony Magazine even named her one of the top new artists to watch.

Playing Around the World

Jasmine Choi started her music career by releasing an album in Korea in 2006. It was called Jasmine Choi plays Mozart and featured music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After that, she played in some big orchestras. She was an associate principal flautist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Later, she became the principal flautist of the Vienna Symphony in Austria.

From May 2012 to August 2013, Jasmine was the main flautist for the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. This was a special moment because she was the first person born in Korea to join this famous orchestra. She even recorded some flute music by Mozart with other musicians from the orchestra.

Jasmine is also very creative. She has changed music written for other instruments so it can be played on the flute. This is called transcribing. For example, she transcribed violin concertos by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky for the flute. She also transcribed a piece by Saint-Saens. She has recorded music by Claude Bolling and the 12 Fantasies for Solo Flute by Georg Philipp Telemann. A composer named Mark Laycock even wrote a special flute concerto just for her! In 2016, her hometown of Daejeon, Korea, named her a Cultural Ambassador.

Her Music Albums

Jasmine Choi has released many albums. Here are some of them:

• Love in Paris - a live recital album, with Sangwook Park (2017)
• Trio Joy - free improvisations, with Joe Fonda and Harvey Sorgen (2017)
• The Telemann Files : 12 Fantasies for Solo Flute (2015)
• W.A.Mozart: 5 Quartets with Flute, with members of Vienna Symphony (2013)
• Claude Bolling Suite for Flute and Jazz Trio (2012)
• Fantasy (2011)
• Jasmine Choi Plays Mozart (2006) (released only in Korea)