Queen Elisabeth Competition Newsletter – Focus on the laureates of Violin 2019 : Shannon Lee
In the past few years, Shannon Lee not only developed her solo and chamber music career on several continents, focusing regularly on contemporary works, but also devoted herself to teaching, recording CDs and founded her own chamber music and composition workshop in Dallas.
Shortly after the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Competition, Shannon Lee won top prize and the audience award at the Sendai Competition and was named co-winner in the 2020 Shanghai Isaac Stern Competition. She has since performed as a soloist with orchestras including the Tokyo Symphony, Sendai Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, Arkansas Symphony, and New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
During her graduate studies in Cleveland with Jaime Laredo, Shannon premiered a violin concerto by Mexican composer Julián Fueyo called Serpiente de Turquesas, which went on to win the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Across from the hall of the Cleveland Orchestra, she was an artist-in-residence at Judson Manor during the pandemic, and curated solo and chamber music recitals for Judson’s residents on a nearly monthly basis. The programs featured works from Bach and Philidor on baroque violin to Schubert, Brahms, Messiaen, and contemporary works by young composers such as Nathaniel Heyder, Arseniy Gusev, and Gabriel Stossel.
In 2022 Shannon was a participant at Creative Dialogue France, workshopping new pieces with other emerging instrumentalists and composers guided by Anssi Karttunen, Steven Dann, and Julian Anderson. In the upcoming season, she also will be playing a violin concerto by Thierry de Mey with the Doelen Ensemble in Rotterdam.
Shannon moved to the Netherlands in the fall of 2022 for an artist certificate program with Vera Beths at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, adding side studies in baroque violin with Shunske Sato and composition with Willem Jeths. Her exam recital reflected an exploration on gut strings with repertoire from the baroque era to the 20th century, including sonatas by Jean-Féry Rebel and Mozart with harpsichord and fortepiano, a Claude Vivier duo with clarinet, and the Berg Violin Concerto.
Earlier that year, Shannon’s formative violin teacher and mentor, Jan Mark Sloman, passed away after having finished the manuscript for his new book, and Shannon joined the team in the ensuing months working towards its publication. As his teaching assistant at the Meadowmount School and Heifetz International Music Institute, Shannon developed a strong affinity for teaching and continues to teach privately.
Her evolving interests in composition and teaching have converged in the creation of her chamber music and composition workshop in Dallas, Texas, which she plans to continue in upcoming summers. In the first edition in July 2023, young students from the ages of 12 to 16 years old performed several chamber works together, solo repertoire, and the compositions that they had written for themselves (and sometimes each other) within that week.
In addition to her solo activities and teaching, Shannon enjoys pursuing meaningful collaboration projects with her colleagues. Together with pianist Jessica Osborne, Shannon released an album in the spring of 2023 of works by Bartók, Takemitsu, Brahms, Ysaÿe, Liszt/Milstein, and Schubert/Ernst under the Fontec label, and presented recitals in Japan to promote its release. She also played the Schubert Rondo and Fantasie for audiences in France and Hong Kong in collaboration with the Cong Quartet, Daniël Kramer, and Chau Lok-Ping. She will be performing as a soloist with the Shanghai Symphony in March 2024.
Recently she embarked on a recital tour of duets with violinist-violist Luosha Fang, and recorded a new album with composer-pianist Arseniy Gusev under Azica Records and Grammy-award-winning producer Alan Bise, featuring pieces written in Eastern Europe during the Interbellum period, centered around Bartók’s First violin Sonata and Stravinsky’s Duo Concertante. Shannon has also been invited to play piano quintets by Korngold, Fauré, and Shostakovich with the Chianti Ensemble in the Netherlands.
In 2023, Shannon was awarded a generous instrument loan of a fine Italian violin made by Enrico Rocca from the Canadian Council of the Arts Musical Instrument Bank.
https://queenelisabethcompetition.be/en/news/focus-on-the-laureates-of-violin-2019-shannon-lee/
