Sung-Ju Lee: An Extraordinarily Gifted Musician

Korean-American violinist Sung-Ju Lee made her brilliant New York debut in 1977 as winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. She also won First Prize in the Wieniawski Violin Competi­tion, top prizes in the Sibelius Competition in Finland and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium.

Subsequently, Lee has toured extensively through Young Concert Ar­tists. She has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Ambassador Auditorium in Los Angeles, and at colleges throughout the United States, including the State Universities of Arizona, Iowa, and Texas, Amherst and Dartmouth Colleges, and Stanford University. She has given recitals at Temple Beth El of Boca Raton, and Temple Emanu­EI of West Palm Beach, Florida. In 1981 Lee toured Alaska for three weeks under the auspices of Arts Alaska, Inc.

Lee has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony with Sergiu Comissiona, the St. Louis Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Oklahoma, and the Duluth, Chat­tanooga, Missouri, Hartford, and Westchester Symphony Orchestras. In 1984 she toured Germany, Italy, and Switzerland as concertmistress and soloist with the Handel Festival Orchestra.

Sung-Ju Lee often returns to her native Seoul for major engagements, including appearances as soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic and the K.B.S. National Radio Orchestra, on television, and at the Korean Inter­national Music Festival. She has also appeared with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.

Lee showed extraordinary gifts at an early age, appearing as soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of nine and winning the Young People's Competition of Korea when she was 10. At the age of 13 she came to the United States to study with Ivan Galamian, Margaret Pardee, and Dorothy Delay at the Juilliard School in New York.