Biography.

In her twenty-fourth year of collegiate teaching, violinist Soh-Hyun Park Altino continues to find inspiration in mentoring and witnessing her students develop their own voice and expression through the sound of the violin. Her experiences with playing-related injuries fuel her passion to help other string musicians and educators in their search for greater freedom on their instruments.

Native of Korea, Soh-Hyun grew up in a musical home around pianist mother and composer grandfather. She came to Baltimore, Maryland as a high school student seeking better opportunities for violin studies in the preparatory program of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins. She completed her Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctor of Music Arts degrees in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the teaching and guidance of Donald Weilerstein, for whom she was a teaching assistant. Since then she has performed and taught in music festivals and schools in Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Korea, Venezuela, and throughout the U.S.

Soh-Hyun taught violin and chamber music at the University of Memphis for fourteen years prior to serving on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she received the Certain-Sandefur Distinguished Teaching Award and the Vilas Associates research award. Her current study of interpreting traditional Korean music on the Western violin has given her a new and greater understanding of her native culture, language, and people. She is deeply grateful for those who have persisted in preserving traditional Korean music. Her research has been funded by the grants from various institutions including the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) and the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) in Korea.

She has been teaching at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Illinois since 2021 and lives in Wheaton with her husband, cellist Leonardo, and their son, David.