Anna Lee, violin

Violinist Anna Lee captivates audiences with her “warm, human musicality” and “gentle grace.” She is active as a soloist, chamber musician, and pedagogue. She began playing the violin at the age of four with Alexander Souptel and made her solo debut performing Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1. A year and a half later, she performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Lan Shui. Born in South Korea, she spent much of her childhood in Japan and Singapore. At the age of six, she moved to New York after being admitted to the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, where she studied with Masao Kawasaki.

Anna Lee has appeared in many prestigious venues, including Carnegie Weill and Zankel Halls, Wigmore Hall, Beethoven-Haus, Avery Fisher Hall, Victoria Hall, Lotte Concert Hall, Esplanade Concert Hall, Merkin Hall, and the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. A laureate of numerous international competitions, she won first prizes at the Ysaÿe Competition (2022), Classic Strings Dubai (2022), the Montreal International Music Competition (2019), the Indianapolis International Violin Competition (2018), the Sion-Valais International Violin Competition (2011), the Kronberg Violin Masterclasses (2011), the Menuhin Competition (2010 and 2012, in the junior and senior divisions respectively), as well as the Aspen Music Festival AACA Competition. She has also received the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts from Harvard’s Office for the Arts, the Bernhard and Mania Hahnloser Violin Prize from the Verbier Festival Academy, and the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award.

She has appeared at festivals around the world, including the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and the Marlboro Music Festival, and on radio programmes such as From the Top, hosted by Christopher O’Riley, and NPR Performance Today, hosted by Fred Child. She has also appeared on the cover of WSJ. Magazine.

Anna Lee has collaborated with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, and Steven Isserlis as part of the Kronberg Academy’s Chamber Music Connects the World festival. She was also presented by Sir András Schiff at the Beethovenfest Bonn. As a soloist, she made her debut with the New York Philharmonic in April 2011, and made her Frankfurt debut in 2016 with Christoph Eschenbach and the Hessische Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Park Avenue Chamber Orchestra, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

Anna Lee studied with Masao Kawasaki and Cho-Liang Lin at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, with Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy, with Ani Kavafian at the Yale School of Music, and with Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein in Boston, where she earned a degree in Comparative Literature from Harvard College. She also teaches chamber music, notably at the Kronberg Academy’s Mit Musik-Miteinander festival in Germany, at the Classical Music Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and at Festival MusicAlp in France.

Anna Lee receives a patronage scholarship generously offered by Mr and Mrs Philippe Tournay.

Since September 2023, Anna Lee has been an Artist in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, under the direction of Augustin Dumay.

Latest update: 18 May 2026