Yura Lee
About this Artist
Violinist and violist Yura Lee is one of the most versatile artists in the world. She is one of the few musicians who has mastery of both violin and viola and actively performs the instruments equally. In her career of more than two decades that has taken her around the globe, she has—both as a soloist and as a chamber musician—captivated audiences with music from the Baroque to the modern eras.
Lee was the only first-prize winner awarded across four categories at the 2013 ARD International Music Competition in Germany. She has won top prizes for both violin and viola in numerous other competitions, including first prize and audience prize at the 2006 Leopold Mozart Competition (Germany), first prize at the 2010 UNISA International Competition (South Africa), first prize at the 2013 Yuri Bashmet International Competition (Russia), and top prizes in the Indianapolis (US), Hannover (Germany), Kreisler (Austria), and Paganini (Italy) competitions.
At age 12, Lee became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the Performance Today awards given by National Public Radio. She is also the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Lee’s CD with Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, titled Mozart in Paris (Oehms Classics), received France’s prestigious Diapason d’Or Award.
Lee was nominated and represented by Carnegie Hall for the European Concert Hall Organization series, giving recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Wigmore Hall (London), Symphony Hall (Birmingham, UK), Musikverein (Vienna), Mozarteum (Salzburg), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Stockholm Konserthus, Athens Concert Hall, and Cologne Philharmonie.
As a soloist, Lee has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony , Baltimore Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, to name a few. As a chamber musician, Lee regularly takes part in the Salzburg Festival, Verbier Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, Seattle Festival, Caramoor Festival, Kronberg Festival, and Aspen Music Festival, among others. She is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society.
Yura Lee studied at The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Salzburg Mozarteum, and Kronberg Academy (Germany). Her main teachers were Namyoon Kim, Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenco, and Nobuko Imai.
Lee plays a Giovanni Grancino violin kindly loaned to her through Beare’s International Violin Society by generous sponsors. For viola, she plays an instrument made in 2002 by Douglas Cox of Vermont. Lee lives in Portland, OR, and Los Angeles, where she is a member of the faculty at the USC Thornton School of Music.