‘Cellist Nathan Choe is the winner of the 2022 Lorraine C. Lippert Young Artist Concerto Competition. He will perform a movement from Elgar’s Concerto for ‘cello and orchestra at the Pittsburgh Philharmonic’s concert “Orchestral Carnival” on March 16, 2024.
The Young Artist Concerto Competition is open to high school musicians performing on harp, strings, brass, or woodwinds. Applicants must be between the ages of 14 and 19 and must be residents of Allegheny, Butler, Beaver, Washington, or Westmoreland counties. All applicants are required to submit a CD recording of one movement of a standard concerto to the Philharmonic. Finalists selected then appear in person before an Audition Panel and that group selects the winner of the competition.
Nathan Choe, 18, served as principal cellist of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra and is an accomplished YouTube content creator with a following of two million subscribers. He is a student of Adam Liu, assistant principal cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Nathan has earned a multitude of accolades, including winning the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Concerto Competition for the 2020-2021 season and the Pittsburgh Concert Society Young Artist Auditions in 2023. He also won first prize in several international and national music competitions, including the 2020 Crescendo International Music Competition, the 2021 Elite International Music Competition, the 2022 American Protege International Concerto Competition, the 2022 NLPA International Young Artist Competition, and the 2023 National Virtuosi Recital Competition. Nathan’s successes also include winning the first
prize in the 2022 International Golden Classical Music Awards, leading him to make his cello debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Beyond his passion as a soloist, Nathan performed at various charitable and community outreach events with the Montgomery Fellowship Quartet. He began his cello studies at the age of seven under the guidance of Ms. Paula Tuttle at Carnegie Mellon University’s Music Preparatory School and served as principal cellist for the Symphonette of the Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestra before joining the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra. He attended North Allegheny School District, pre-pandemic, and is now a senior at Pennsylvania Leadership School.
When he is not performing on the cello, Nathan enjoys practicing Taekwondo and dedicates his time to composing music, writing scripts, and making animation films and gaming videos for his YouTube channel. One of his animation films went viral worldwide with a YouTube trending rank of #21, and he was nominated as a Roblox Video Star, which included Video of the Year in the Roblox Innovation Awards in 2022.