Yena Lee is a Korean-Canadian violinist. A laureate of numerous international competitions—including the Wolfgang Marschner, Shean, Canadian Music Competition, International Schubert Competition Vienna, Young Texas Artist Competition, and Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition. At fourteen, she became the youngest recipient of British Columbia’s Most Promising Musician Award and later the youngest honoree of Germany’s prestigious JGU-Preis.
As a soloist, she has appeared with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Adrian Ensemble Italy, Mainz Hochschulorchester, Boston Chamber Orchestra, Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra, Mainzer Virtuosi Kammerorchester, Neumeyer Consort Frankfurt, Casalmaggiore Festival Orchestra, Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, Vancouver Pilgrim Orchestra, Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra, Vergilius Symphony Orchestra, West Coast Symphony, with performances featured on major European arts channels and Canadian CBC Radio. Her concerts have taken her to venues including David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Museo del Violino in Cremona, St. John’s Square, Orpheum Theatre, and Symphony Hall.
Equally devoted to chamber music, she has collaborated with leading ensembles and artists, working with members of the Artis, Borromeo, Brentano, Danish, Dover, Emerson, Hagen, Takács, and Tokyo quartets, and participating in projects led by John Adams, Joshua Bell, Julius Berger, James Conlon, Valery Gergiev, Midori Goto, Yo-Yo Ma, Ken-David Masur, Peter Oundjian, Krzysztof Penderecki, Larry Rachleff, José Serebrier, and Bramwell Tovey.
As an orchestral musician, she served as concertmaster for Mainzer Virtuosi Kammerorchester, Vergilius Symphony Orchestra; guest concertmaster with Oklahoma City Philharmonic; associate concertmaster with New Mexico Philharmonic; assistant concertmaster with Annapolis Symphony Orchestra; and regular substitute violinist with Houston Symphony Orchestra and Mercury Chamber Orchestra. She is invited as a guest concertmaster for Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra and joins Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra as an associate concertmaster for this season.
In 2018, Yena was appointed assistant artistic director of the Casalmaggiore International Music Festival. Dedicated to mentorship and pedagogy, Dr. Lee is Assistant Professor of Violin at the East Carolina University. Previously, she held a position at the University of Oklahoma. Her students have matriculated into prestigious institutions such as the Colburn School, Eastman, Glen Gould School, Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Juilliard, Indiana University, and the New England Conservatory. Numerous of her students have successfully won positions in Civic Orchestra of Chicago, New World Symphony Fellowship, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Tulsa Symphony, Peoria Symphony, Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, and Staatstheater Wiesbaden. Additionally, they have distinguished themselves by participating and winning in competitions such as the Brahms, Chicago Violin Competition, Montreal, Queen Elisabeth, Sibelius, and YoungArts competitions. Her private students have been selected to perform in Verbier Festival Orchestra and served as concertmasters for NYO and All-State Orchestras.
Yena's mentors include Taras Gabora, Lawrie Hill, Nai-Yuan Hu, Hyo Kang, Lisa Kim, Cho-Liang Lin, Anne Shih, and Peter Zazofsky. She completed Diplom-Orchestermusik and Konzertexamen (Artist Diploma) as the youngest candidate at the Hochschule für Musik in Mainz, Germany. She received both MM and MMA from the Yale School of Music, and a DMA from the Rice University Shepherd School of Music.