Yura Lee Wins ARD Munich Competition

Yura Lee ’05 AD Wins Viola Grand Prize in ARD Munich Competition

Former Student of Miriam Fried, Lee Known at NEC Primarily as a Violinist

Wins €10,000 Prize and Concert Dates

Korean-born violinist/violist Yura Lee, who received her Artist Diploma from New England Conservatory in 2005 and who was known primarily as a violinist at NEC, has won the Viola section of the prestigious ARD Munich Competition. Presented by the Association of Public Broadcasting Corporations in the Federal Republic of Germany (ARD), the 62nd edition of the competition finished last week and will present the new winners in performances this week with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. Lee was awarded a €10,000 cash prize and will be invited to perform with ARD broadcasters and a variety of German orchestras.

Lee, who studied at NEC with Miriam Fried, was chosen to be the violin soloist on the Jordan Hall Centennial Concert in October 2003 that was conducted by Gunther Schuller.

A multi-prize winner, Lee was the recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2007. She has also won first prize and the audience prize at the 2006 Leopold Mozart Competition (Germany), the first prize at the 2010 UNISA International Competition (South Africa), and top prizes in the Indianapolis (USA), Hannover (Germany), Kreisler (Austria) and Paganini (Italy) Competitions.

As a soloist, she has appeared with many major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NDR Symphonieorchester, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and many others. Ms. Lee has performed with conductors Christophe Eschenbach, Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, Myung-Whun Chung, Mikhail Pletnev, among many others.

For further information, check the NEC Website

ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
A cultural icon approaching its 150th anniversary in 2017, New England Conservatory (NEC) is recognized worldwide as a leader among music schools. Located in Boston, Massachusetts, on the Avenue of the Arts in the Fenway Cultural District, NEC offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. NEC alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC-trained musicians and faculty.

NEC is the oldest independent school of music in the United States. Founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee, an American music educator, choral conductor and organist, its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, NEC features training in classical, jazz, and Contemporary Improvisation. Graduate and post-graduate programs supplement these core disciplines with orchestral conducting and professional chamber music training. Additional programs, such as the Sistema Fellows, a professional training program for top postgraduate musicians and music educators that creates careers connected to music, youth, and social change, and Entrepreneurial Musicianship, a cutting-edge program integrating professional and personal skills development into the musical training of students to better develop the skills and knowledge needed to create one’s own musical opportunities, also enhance the NEC experience.

Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Programs and Partnerships Program, the Conservatory provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, and adults. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music, jazz, and Contemporary Improvisation. Currently more than 750 young artists from 46 states and 39 foreign countries attend NEC on the college level; 1,400 young students attend on the Preparatory level; and 325 adults participate in the Continuing Education program.

The only conservatory in the United States designated a National Historic Landmark, NEC presents more than 900 free concerts each year. Many of these take place in Jordan Hall (which shares National Historic Landmark status with the school), world-renowned for its superb acoustics and beautifully restored interior. In addition to Jordan Hall, more than a dozen performance spaces of various sizes and configurations are utilized to meet the requirements of the unique range of music performed at NEC, from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to big band jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre or Paramount Center in Boston, and a semi-staged performance in Jordan Hall. This past 2012-2013 season, the operas produced were Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and Rossini’s La Gazzetta.

NEC is co-founder and educational partner of From the Top, a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by National Public Radio and is heard on 250 stations throughout the United States.

Contact: Ellen Pfeifer
Senior Communications Specialist
New England Conservatory
290 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
617-585-1143
Ellen.pfeifer@necmusic.edu