Yura Lee

Yura Lee is one of the most versatile and compelling artists of today. She was the only first prize winner awarded across four categories at the 2013 ARD 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 Indianapolis (USA), Hannover (Germany), Kreisler (Austria), and Paganini (Italy) Competitions. At age 12, she became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the Performance Today awards given by NPR. She is also the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Her CD with Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, titled “Mozart in Paris” (Oehms Classics) received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award in France. Ms. Lee was nominated and represented by Carnegie Hall’s Distinctive Debuts and the European Concert Hall Organization’s Rising Stars series. She gave recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and nine celebrated concert halls in Europe. As a soloist, Ms. Lee has appeared with many major orchestras, including New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, to name a few. As a chamber musician, Yura Lee regularly takes part in the Marlboro, Salzburg, Verbier, La Jolla, Seattle, Caramoor, Ravinia, Kronberg, and Aspen festivals. She is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as both violinist and violist. In May 2022, she was named principal viola of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Lee studied at the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Salzburg Mozarteum, and Kronberg Academy. Her main teachers were Namyun Kim, Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai. She is an associate professor of practice and the Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld Endowed Chair in String Instruction at the University of Southern California. She has been a BCMS member musician since 2013.