Violinist/violist Yura Lee is one of the most versatile and compelling artists of today. She is one of the very few in the world that has mastery of both violin and viola, and she actively performs both instruments equally. Her career spans through various musical mediums, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, captivating audiences with music from baroque to modern, and enjoying a career that spans more than two decades and takes her all over the world.

Ms. Lee was the only first prize winner awarded across four categories at the 2013 ARD Competition in Germany. She has won top prizes for both violin and viola in numerous other competitions, including first prize and audience prize at the 2006 Leopold Mozart Competition (Germany), first prize at the 2010 UNISA International Competition (South Africa), first prize at the 2013 Yuri Bashmet International Competition (Russia), and top prizes in Indianapolis (USA), Hannover (Germany), Kreisler (Austria), and Paganini (Italy) Competitions.

As a chamber musician, Ms. Lee regularly takes part in numerous festivals, including the Marlboro Festival, Salzburg Festival, Verbier Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, and Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and she is currently a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Boston Chamber Music Society. Her studies took place at the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Salzburg Mozarteum, and Kronberg Academy. Currently, she teaches at the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California.

For violin, Ms. Lee plays a fine Giovanni Grancino violin kindly loaned to her through the Beares International Violin Society by her generous sponsors. For viola, she plays an instrument made in 2002 by Douglas Cox, who resides in Vermont.

We have heard Yura Lee play violin as part of the Ensō String Quartet in 2017 and violin and viola on our Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festivals of 2016, 2018, and 2020. For tonight’s concert, she will be featured on the violin.

A “wanderer between worlds” (Lucerne Festival), “immensely talented” and “quietly powerful pianist” (The New York Times), Swiss-born American Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Comfortable with and seeking out an enormous range of repertoire, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he has in recent years appeared with various orchestras, while performing recitals and chamber music at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed … a study in intensity” by The New York Times.

Recent projects include Berg’s Kammerkonzert with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, a tour with Jörg Widmann and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mozart concerti with the Vancouver Symphony and Florida Orchestra, performances at Seoul’s LG Arts Centre and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, collaborations with Kent Nagano with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Munich Philharmonic (Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety”) as well as numerous appearances internationally and throughout the United States with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and on the faculty of Bard Conservatory. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist.

Mr. Vonsattel has performed on our Evening Series with the Ébène Quartet in 2010 and as a member of the Naumburg Trio in 2019.