With the 1st prize at the “International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition 2015” in Helsinki, Christel Lee is the first North American prize winner in the competition’s 50-year history. This success is the latest and greatest in a whole series of competition wins. In 2013, Christel Lee won the first prize in the “International ARD Music Competition”. 2nd prize (if not awarded 1st prize) and the audience award.
The US-American of South Korean origin was born in Bloomington (USA) in 1990, she grew up in Vancouver (Canada). Initially, Christel Lee studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 2011 she moved to Europe, where she studied at the Kronberg Academy and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich with Prof. Ana Chumachenco. She was also a scholarship holder at the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein and participated in the intensive weeks there.
As a soloist, Christel Lee has already performed with orchestras such as the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, the KBS Symphony Orchestra Seoul and the SWR Symphony Orchestra. Another musical focus is chamber music. Together with leading musicians of her generation, she is a welcome guest at numerous festivals in Europe, the USA and Korea, including the Aspen Music Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Kronberg Academy Festival, the Mozartfest Würzburg and the FESTIVAL NEXT GENERATION Bad Ragaz in Switzerland.
Highlights of the upcoming season include engagements as a soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen and the Korean Symphony Orchestra, as well as debuts at the Cantabile Festival in Lisbon, the Settimane Musicali Ascona and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.
Christel Lee plays a violin by Lorenzo Storioni from 1781, which is made available to her by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.