ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

An all-around musician, Yejee Choi, director, maintains a dynamic career as a conductor, composer, vocalist, keyboardist, and educator. Choi joined the faculty of the Conservatory of Music at University of the Pacific in the fall of 2016. Prior to conducting at Pacific, Choi enjoyed an exuberant performing life as a conductor and ensemble musician in various venues in South Korea, Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia, and across the United States. Highlights of her performances include works with Marin Alsop, Helmuth Rilling, James Conlon, Simon Halsey, Osmo Vänskä, David Hill, and Grant Gershon. Choi also has appeared at many of the major concert venues and at such renowned halls as Walt Disney Concert Hall, Hollywood Bowl, Opera House of Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, and Orchestra Hall (Minnesota) to name a few. A passionate advocate of community engagement through music, Choi cofounded the J.W. Summer Festival Chorale, a semiprofessional choir of ninety-three members in reserve in Seoul. Upon the founding of the organization in 2010, Choi fully exerted her entrepreneurship, codirecting both musical and administrative aspects of the group.

Equally devoted to music education for youth and children, Choi also served as the founding board member of the “Music Belongs To Everyone!” series, a youth outreach program under the umbrella of the J.W. Chorale. Choi held similar positions as director of the choral division of the Esperanza Azteca Youth Orchestra and Choir in Los Angeles and as the founding conductor of the Modesto Youth Chorus, an ensemble affiliated with the Modesto Symphony Orchestra.

As a composer Choi has been continually commissioned by various choral and instrumental ensembles and soloists in Seoul since 2010. Her compositional interest lies in adopting and amalgamating diverse musical idioms from different genres and cultures ranging from Korean folk songs to Western classical music, jazz, pop, alternative rock, and ethnic music in exploration of ever-evolving sound language. Having studied film and media scoring at Yonsei University, South Korea, Choi also continues her creative endeavors by focusing on amplifying the potential of acoustic choral sound in combination with Virtual Studio Technology (VST) instruments and live instruments. A native of South Korea, Choi holds a bachelor’s degree in voice performance from the University of Wisconsin–River Falls and a master’s degree in choral conducting from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. She completed her doctorate in conducting at the USC Thornton School of Music, where she was the instructor of Choral Conducting I and the Oriana Women’s Choir, and was awarded the outstanding doctoral graduate of her class. Prior to her study in the United States, she attended Yonsei University as an English language and literature major and the Korea National University of Arts as a composition major. In addition to voice, conducting, and composition, Choi received rigorous training in piano and organ and performed with various instrumental chamber music ensembles in the United States and South Korea.

Igor Veligan, violin, joined the faculty of the University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2006. He holds the Master of Arts degree in violin performance and chamber music from the Odessa State Conservatory. His primary violin teachers included Zoja Istomina and Galina Gritzenko. He studied chamber music with Oleg Shkarpitnuy and Natalya Buzanova, and he has participated in masterclasses with Zakhar Bron, Liana Isakadze, and Igor Frolov.

As a chamber musician, Veligan performs with the L’Estro Armonico String Quartet and the Arlekin String Quartet. He has also been a guest violist with the Argenta Trio and a violist with the Chamber Music Society of Sacramento. As an orchestral performer, he is concertmaster of the San Francisco Choral Society Orchestra, principal viola of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra, principal violist of the Lake Tahoe Summer Festival, and a member of the Monterey Symphony. He recently performed as concertmaster of the Sacramento Philharmonic.

At Pacific’s Conservatory, Veligan teaches violin, viola, and chamber music, and he also teaches at American River College in Sacramento. He previously taught at the School for the Performing Arts in Ternopil, Ukraine.

Patricia Grimm, organ, currently serves as organist at Fremont Presbyterian Church in Sacramento. At the University of the Pacific she teaches sight singing and collaborative piano, and she serves as a collaborative pianist with students, faculty, and guest artists.

Grimm holds a Bachelor of Music degree in sacred music with organ concentration from Duquesne University, a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from Kent State University, and a Master of Music degree in collaborative piano from the Hartt School of Music. She also studied piano with Jonathan Feldman at the Juilliard School.

As a collaborative pianist, Grimm has performed at the Edinburgh International Music Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland; the Trinity Wall Street Music Series in New York City; and chamber music concerts at the Musica no Museu Festival of Winds, Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, and Universidade Federal Do Estado Do Rio De Janeiro–Unirio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Grimm regularly performs throughout the United States as a collaborative pianist and chamber musician. Prior to moving to Sacramento in 2013, she was a freelance collaborative pianist in the New York City metropolitan area and staff accompanist at Central Connecticut State University, in addition to maintaining an active private teaching studio.