Last week, while most underclassmen at the school were taking PARCC tests, sophomore Elli Choi was at the Department of State performing at the state luncheon hosted by the Trump administration. There was also a dinner that night, where President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron toasted to their Franco-American alliance. This dinner was the first state dinner hosted by the Trump administration. Choi was invited to this event by a music production company based in D.C., with whom she has previously worked before. She saw notable figures like French President Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron; Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence; and Acting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Choi arrived in Washington at 2 a.m. on the day of the state luncheon, right after participating in the Menuhin Competition and Festival in Geneva, Switzerland for two weeks. “It was extremely exciting to be performing at the state dinner,” said Choi.

Choi has been playing the violin since the age of three. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, she has been in the pre-college division at The Juilliard School in New York since she was eight years old. Choi and her mother used to commute every Friday to New York from their home in Carmel Valley, California to attend to violin lessons at The Juilliard School. She would spend the whole day at the school on Saturday, then fly back home on Sunday. This routine continued until she moved to New York in 2010. She lived there for seven years and moved to Tenafly last year.

As a musical prodigy, Choi has been exposed to music ever since she was young, especially by her mother, a piano teacher. Only a year after she started playing the violin, Choi was invited to perform at a Suzuki Method convention in Italy. In her 13 years of playing the violin, Choi has performed on both local and national TV, like The Bonnie Hunt Show. On this program, seven-year-old Choi awed the audience with her violin skills and was called a “violin virtuoso.”

Throughout her career as a violinist, Choi has accomplished many things in a few years that most musicians aspire to accomplish in their lifetime. She says her role model is the Russian violinist Jascha Heifetz. Although she is a violin prodigy, she is just like a regular student. “My goal for the future is to be happy and do what I love,” said Choi.