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Maureen Choi

Since starting to play violin at age 3, Maureen has won numerous solo competitions and performed with orchestras all over the U.S., Europe and Asia. After graduating from Michigan State University, she went on to study jazz and improvisation at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She has collaborated with top musicians in Detroit, Boston and New York, including Rodney Whitaker, Johnny O'Neal, Larry Harlow, Ed Byrne, Kanye West, DJ Premiere and Josh Groban.

Her first jazz album "Maureen Choi Quartet" (2011) was very well received among US radio stations and in publications such as Jazziz Magazine and Jazz Corner, staying in AllAboutJazz.com’s Top 50 for several months. Recently she recorded the soundtrack for the latest film by Emilio Aragón, “A Night in Old Mexico”, which was nominated at the 28th annual Goya awards in the category for Best Original Music. In addition to playing in venues around the world with her Quartet, Maureen is currently based in Madrid and teaches at the Berklee College of Music in Valencia, as well as at the Escuela de Música Creativa in Madrid.

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Take Five With...

Take Five with Maureen Choi

Read "Take Five with Maureen Choi" reviewed by Maureen Choi


Meet Maureen Choi Now residing in Spain, this Korean-American violinist is sparkling a revolution in the improvised music scene in Spain. Her band Maureen Choi Quartet is creating a sound that they describe as, “Spanish Chamber Jazz." After winning several international violin competitions starting at age five, Maureen has performed as a soloist across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. A graduate from Michigan State University and Berklee College of Music, she has performed with artists like Rodney ...

35
SoCal Jazz

Maureen Choi: A Fusion of Passion and Intent

Read "Maureen Choi: A Fusion of Passion and Intent" reviewed by Jim Worsley


Maureen Choi is certainly not the first musician to find their way into the improvisational jazz world after years of training as a classical violinist. It was an unlikely direction for a woman who grew up with formal classical training and further had never really listened to jazz. Fast forwarding to the present, we now have the Maureen Choi Quartet. A nothing-short-of-brilliant ensemble of musicians who play and compose with intense and fiery passion. Choi's music is a seamless symmetry ...

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SoCal Jazz

Maureen Choi Quartet at BacchusLIVE

Read "Maureen Choi Quartet at BacchusLIVE" reviewed by Jim Worsley


We live in an era where chit chatting now, most annoyingly, rivals actual listening to the music at many concerts. It is with supreme delight then, that I share my enthralling experience of an evening of musical brilliance that was free of any such boorish clutter. You could have heard a pin drop at Bacchus' Kitchen in Pasadena, California during the Maureen Choi Quartet performance. A virtuoso violinist, Choi, and her bandmates treated an attentive and appreciative audience to two ...

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Album Review

Maureen Choi Quartet: Theia

Read "Theia" reviewed by Geno Thackara


It is appropriate that Maureen Choi's career has included extensive teaching stints in jny: New York City and her newer home base, jny: Madrid. Both have a rich musical history bridging the body-moving and the cerebral. The Choi quartet honors both on their third outing Theia; it's a work overflowing with smarts which never forgets to aim for the heart and/or the feet as well. “Phoenix Borealis" sets the tone right away by simmering in chamber jazz and ...

10
Album Review

Maureen Choi: Theia

Read "Theia" reviewed by Jim Worsley


Maureen Choi's classical training and leanings are at the forefront and provide a substantial foundation. The palette is then wide open to incorporate jazz, flamenco, and fandango. Theia has a distinctive array of colors and has profoundly compelling undertones. Each song is its own unique journey with unknown passages, trap doors, and idiosyncratic paths leading to seamless tempo changes and unrestrained exploration. Theia opens with its most spacious and exhilarating piece. Choi's epic composition “Phoenix Borealis" traverses ...

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Album Review

Maureen Choi Quartet: Theia

Read "Theia" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


On the third outing with her quartet, American violinist and composer Maureen Choi perfects the style she has been developing over the past albums with much love for detail and an awareness of the catchy and the danceable. In a mix of originals and interpretations of Spanish and Latin American classics, Choi's quartet presents over an hour of enticing rhythms and melodies, with an invigorating energy that is an invitation to join in. Born in Michigan, and having ...

10
Album Review

Maureen Choi Quartet: Theia

Read "Theia" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard


These days, it's the rule rather than the exception to mix different traditions of music, and the result is sometimes a postmodern grab bag without aesthetic direction. Transgressing genres isn't inherently a sign of quality. In fact, it can be a symptom of shallowness--something that surely isn't needed in these fast-clicking times. But then again, it also happens that an artist digs deep into different traditions of music in order to refine a personal language. This is ...

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“The excellent quartet disc Ida y Vuelta, reflects influences from through-out the Spanish-speaking world” - Downbeat Magazine
Primary Instrument

Violin

Location

Madrid

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Theia

Barco Records
2019

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Ida Y Vuelta

Barco Records
2015

buy

Maureen Choi Quartet

Maureen Choi Music
2011

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Videos

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