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Choohooi Khoo: Pianist Wins Second YouTube Contest

  Tobias

ChooHooi Khoo, who lives in Bakersfield, California, is a native of Malaysia. The young pianist began studying at age 6 and completed 8th grade piano in 1989 at the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music. Ms. Khoo was awarded the Datuk I.K. Cheah Memorial Prize; she came to the U.S. in 1991 with her family, and received a degree in Physical Therapy at California's Loma Linda University. Music was her passion, though, while raising her two sons and advancing her career in medicine. Choohooi Khoo currently works as a full-time physical therapist and practice manager for a rheumatology medical office.

Ms. Khoo says she has encouraged her children to learn music, and it was her son's piano instructor who told her about the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. She and her family were "glued to the computer monitor," she says, watching the cliburn.tv competition.

Just two weeks before the deadline for entering Cliburn's YouTube Contest, ChooHooi Khoo learned of the opportunity. "With the encouragement of my husband and children, I decided to compete, even though I had only two weeks to pick a piece, to practice, to record, and to submit the video." She says she and her family and friends thought she was a long-shot for the competition, and her husband ordered a Steinway grand piano for her pianist "consolation prize."

The YouTube contest featured 58 videos submitted by competitors in the over-35 age group. Works by composers from Bach and Mozart to Scott Joplin were included; the YouTube videos were viewed by 85,000 people.