Bernice Ooi

Violinist Khai Ern Ooi is a member of the Royal Swedish Orchestra, and the only Southeast Asian throughout its history of almost 500 years. She has performed in the position of co-principal of the second violins in the Royal Swedish Orchestra, as well as with the symphony orchestras of Norrköping and Gothenburg. In Malaysia, she serves as the concertmaster of the Malaysia Bach Festival Orchestra, and performs regularly with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. She was previously a core member of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra in Japan and the Assistant Concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.

Khai Ern has performed in major festivals such as Lucerne, Salzburg, and Spoleto USA, and in venues like Carnegie Hall in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Royal Albert Hall in London, under the direction of many eminent conductors, including Alan Gilbert, Sir Neville Marriner, Pierre Boulez and Lorin Maazel. She has performed in concert tours throughout Japan, Europe, and Malaysia. Khai Ern was also the only Malaysian representative in both the Aldeburgh World Orchestra and the Commonwealth Strings Project, ensembles that were put together in conjunction with the 2012 London Olympics and the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games respectively.

Highlights of 2024 include a concert tour of Germany in June, especially at Bachfest Leipzig, as the Concertmaster of the Malaysia Bach Festival Orchestra; a tour concert at Taichung, Taiwan in July, with Ensemble Virama and esteemed trumpeter Hou Chuan-An; and performing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia as soloist. Khai Ern is also a recent recipient of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s Sten Frykberg Memorial Fund Scholarship and the Royal Swedish Opera’s Kurt Bendix Fund Scholarship.

Khai Ern earned undergraduate and master degrees at Indiana University, where she studied violin with Federico Agostini and Mark Kaplan, and chamber music with Atar Arad and the Orion String Quartet.