Helen Cha-Pyo American conductor and organist Country: USA

Biography of Helen Cha-Pyo

Helen Cha-Pyo is an American conductor and organist. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she began studying piano at a young age and won numerous competitions, including the Grand Prize at the Young Musicians Competition in Los Angeles. When she was 13 years old, her family moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States.

At Poughkeepsie High School, Cha-Pyo completed her studies in piano and organ at The Juilliard School in New York City. She later earned a master's degree in conducting and organ performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where she studied with organist David Higgs. During her time at Eastman, she served as the assistant conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia and the Eastman Chorale, and received the Charles Nicholls Memorial Award.

From 1996 to June 2003, Cha-Pyo was the artistic director and conductor of the Riverside Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir in New York. She also held the position of assistant music director at Riverside Church and initiated the Riverside Music Education Program, which currently engages thousands of students from New York City. She has been the assistant conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, Oregon, since 1995, and has worked as a guest conductor with various orchestras and choirs in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Cha-Pyo has collaborated with orchestras such as the Altenberg Festival Orchestra, Beethoven Chamber Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra, New Washington Symphony Orchestra, and Washington Korean Orchestra. She has also served as a musical advisor at the Rachmaninoff International Music Festival in Russia.

As the winner of the John Rodland Memorial Organ Competition in 1992, supported by the American Guild of Organists, Cha-Pyo has performed extensively as a concert organist in the United States and Asia, including solo performances with symphony orchestras. In 1999, she worked with the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong Kong as a rehearsal conductor and assistant to maestro Sergiu Comissiona. That same year, she conducted the premiere of the choral collection "A Garland for Linda" dedicated to the memory of Linda McCartney.

In the fall of 2000, Cha-Pyo conducted the orchestra at the world premiere of "No Easy Walk to Freedom," an opera based on the life of Nelson Mandela, at the New Opera Festival at Hofstra University. Since September 2002, she has been the music director and conductor of the Empire State Youth Orchestra in Albany, New York.