Young-Shin Choi is currently pursuing a doctorate in composition at the University of California at Santa Cruz where he is studying with David Evan Jones and Peter Elsea. Choi is striving to cultivate an aesthetic based upon a unique combination of musical elements drawn from Korean traditional music and modern Western musical idioms.

He has received numerous awards in important Korean competitions, including the 1997 and 1998 Daejon Contemporary Music Festival prize; Fourteenth Youngnam Composers’ Association Competition winner; Second Percussive Arts Society of Daegu 2001 Winner. In 1999, he was awarded a Monbusho scholarship to study at Nagasaki University, Japan. The scholarship included full tuition, board, and $10,000 per year stipend. Recently Choi’s work has been performed in the United States: DIALOGUE II for double bass with electronic media was presented at the 2004 Annual Festival of the New West Electro-Acoustic Music Organization (NWEAMO) held in Portland, Oregon. His Fog and Wind for Gayageum and Electronic media was performed in Santa Cruz and Korea in 2007. ISLE OF SPRING for flute, cello and two gayageums was performed in Japan and Korea in March 2008 and YX UNSQUARED for chamber ensemble was presented at April in Santa Cruz New Music Festival 2008. The CHASE for Video with electronic media was presented at the 2008 SCI (Society of Composers Inc.) regional conference in Huntsville, Texas. Choi was “The 2007 Winner of the DAVID COPE Award for Music Composition Excellence.”