Yoonhee Lee

Yoonhee Lee is a Korean-American violinist. She is based in Boston and performs around the world. Her biggest musical influences are the late Masuko Ushioda, Vera Beths, and the late Anner Bijlsma.

Lee has premiered and recorded numerous works by composers such as Rebecca Saunders, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Richard Barrett, and Nina Young. Other composers with whom she has worked closely include Enno Poppe, Georg Friedrich Haas, Kaija Saariaho, Beat Furrer, Jörg Widmann, Lei Liang, and Shiuan Chang. She is the dedicatee of a solo violin piece by Italian composer Simone Cardini, titled Ramificazioni d'indistinto (2018). In 2023 she travels to the Blasket Islands of Ireland for a new chamber opera production by Irish composer Seán Ó Dálaigh and Norwegian director Espen Hjort.

Born in Seoul, Lee began the piano at the age of three and violin at five. She and her family immigrated to Boston just before her tenth birthday. She did not speak a word of English, and for years music became her means of communication as well as refuge. Early experiences of navigating between languages and culture remain a strong part of her identity; as an artist she is interested in fluidity and fragility of genres and boundaries, and she seeks innovation and experimentation in all her endeavors.

Lee plays on a 2015 Andrew Ryan violin and a Joseph Henry bow made circa 1860, previously owned by the late Masuko Ushioda.

New England Conservatory (B.M. 2011, M.M. 2013), Conservatorium van Amsterdam (M.M. 2015 cum laude); Frank Huntington Beebe Fund for Study Abroad (2013-14)