ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR

Photo credit: Ho-Yin Kwok

Described by Classical Voice of North Carolina (CVNC) as an “impressive conductor…outstanding in his attention to detail and his command of the big picture”, Hong Kong-born conductor Ho-Yin Kwok is the winner of 2017-2018 Vincent C. LaGuardia, Jr. Conducting Competition. He cocurrently serves as artistic director and conductor of the Mississippi Valley Orchestra in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, assistant conductor of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, and director of the Duluth Superior Youth Symphony. 

Ho-Yin has previously served as visiting director of orchestra at the University of Minnesota Duluth and adjudicator for the Minnesota Orchestra Young People's Symphony Concert Association’s Concerto Competition. Prior to that, he was assistant conductor of the Collegium Musicum Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University Symphony Orchestra. Their numerous international tours included concerts in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Europe, and Southern China. Other conducting positions included conductor of Sacred Heart Canossian College Orchestra and St. Stephen’s College Orchestra, with which he made his debut in the Musikverein in Vienna, and won 1st Prize in the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival 2014. An avid supporter of new music, Ho-Yin also appeared as conductor for the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. His professional engagements in 2019-2020 include conductor of Menotti's The Consul, co-presented by Arbeit Opera Theatre and University of Minnesota Opera Theatre, cover conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, assistant conductor of Lyric Opera of the North, and subscription concert appearance with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra.

Also a keen violinist, Ho-Yin has appeared as soloist with orchestras of the University of Minnesota, University of Iowa, Hong Kong Baptist University, Collegium Musicum Hong Kong, Orchestra of Shenzhen Arts School, and Hong Kong Youth Symphony Orchestra. His solo performances brought him to Leipzig, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Minneapolis and other cities around the world. An active chamber musician, Ho-Yin was second violinist of Voce String Quartet and violinist of the Chi-fa Trio at the University of Iowa, with which he collaborated with musicians of Ensō String Quartet and played for, among many others, David Shifrin, the Juilliard Quartet, the Pacifica String Quartet, the Brentano String Quartet, Cavani String Quartet, Ying Quartet, and the JACK Quartet. He was concertmaster of Pro Arte Orchestra of Hong Kong, Collegium Musicum Hong Kong, University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra, and Hong Kong Baptist University Symphony Orchestra. He taught violin and viola at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

​Ho-Yin Kwok is a DMA candidate at the University of Minnesota, where he served as co-director of the University’s Campus Orchestras program and assistant conductor of the Opera Theatre. In the opera pit, he has led performances of operas such as Mozart's Idomeneo, Britten's Albert Herring, and Puccini's La Bohéme. In Fall 2019, he was music director of the University Opera Theatre’s production of La Tragédie de Carmen. While in Minnesota, Ho-Yin was selected to the Emerging Conductor Program of the Minnesota Chorale under Artistic Director Kathy Saltzman Romey. Additional studies have taken him as far as Berlin, where he conducted the Berlin Sinfonietta under the direction of Colin Metters. In 2015, 2016, and 2018, Ho-Yin was selected to be Conducting Fellow of the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, where he studied intensively with Gerard Schwarz, Grant Cooper, José-Luis Novo and Eric Garcia. He attended the 2019 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music as a Conducting Associate under Cristian Măcelaru. Ho-Yin obtained a master's degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Iowa. His principal conducting teachers are Mark Russell Smith and William LaRue Jones.