Hwang Bo-yeop

Hwang Bo-yeop, born in 1947, had his eyes opened his eyes to music while playing in the Busan Children’s Choir during the Korean War. With access to a hard-to-get violin, he began taking  lessons at the age of 7, and studied under the violinist Ahn Yong-gu. In 1967, he entered Seoul National University’s College of Music, where he won the Blue Dragon Music Award. Later, he went to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to study. While studying under Professor Abraham Loft at the University of Wisconsin, he was a member of the Fine Art String Quartet and was selected for the Milwaukee Symphony after winning first prize in the Young Competition. Hwang eventually served as  vice concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony before he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in 1973.

In 1973, when there were only a handful of Koreans, or even Asian, in world-class orchestras. He held the adjunct position of the Mary B. Saltonstall chair, endowed in perpetuity at the BSO, and the Eunice and Julian Cohen chair, endowed in perpetuity at the Boston Pops Orchestra.

While active in the BSO, he formed the Francesco String Quartet with his colleagues and played as the first violinist, and as a soloist for the Boston Pops Orchestra. He performed several times under the direction of John Williams. He also taught students in violin and gave chamber music lessons at the New England Conservatory of Music and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI). He retired in 2022 and lives in Weston, Massachusetts.