New Jersey’s Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts has appointed HELEN CHA-PYO artistic director of the Wharton Institute, which encompasses the fourteen ensembles in the New Jersey Youth Symphony, and conductor of the Youth Symphony, effective July 1, 2018. She succeeds Jeffrey Grogan, who left after six years to become director of orchestras at Oklahoma City University. Cha-Pyo is currently music director of the Empire State Youth Orchestras in upstate New York. Under Cha-Pyo’s leadership, the Empire State Youth Orchestras played a range of music from different cultures, commissioned nine works (one for each ESYO ensemble), won three ASCAP awards, and toured Europe, China and South Korea, and Portugal. In 2015, she founded ESYO CHIME, a music education program serving underprivileged youth. From 1996 to 2002, Cha-Pyo was artistic director of the Riverside Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and associate director of music at Riverside Church in New York City. Cha-Pyo holds a bachelor of music degree in organ performance from Oberlin Conservatory and a master of music in conducting and organ performance from the Eastman School of Music.
Posted April 25, 2018
