Hwayoon Lee (*1996) already displayed her technical virtuosity on the viola as a child in Korea, but the fact that she was already playing chamber music in public with her teacher Sang-Jin Kim in Seoul at the age of nine is primarily due to her strong stage presence and artistic sensibility. She has been developing this since the age of three in Korean pansori, a special "art of storytelling" in her performances with pansori master Jung-Hae Oh.
Hwayoon Lee contacted Anne-Sophie Mutter in 2011 in a letter that would lead to one of the decisive musical encounters of her life. Mutter and her foundation provided the young violist with important musical impulses and insights, including during study trips to Vienna and Bonn. After completing her studies in Seoul, the foundation enabled Hwayoon Lee to pursue postgraduate studies at the Kronberg Academy with Nobuko Imai (2017 - 2019) and the concert exam with Hartmut Rohde (2019-2023) at the Berlin University of the Arts. Numerous prizes indicate that her path is a very special one among the violists of our time.
Hwayoon Lee has been a member of Anne-Sophie Mutter's soloist ensemble Mutter's Virtuosi since 2012 and has toured with them extensively over the years. In January of 2023, their most recent tour took Mutter's Virtuosi from Iceland via Canada to the USA, and in summer of 2023 they toured numerous European cities. Together with Anne-Sophie Mutter, she recorded Schubert's "Trout Quintet" in 2017. In 2026, she will premiere Yie-eun Chun's "Kinderszenen", a work commissioned by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation.
Hwayoon Lee regularly works as a soloist with orchestras, for example in 2014 with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Sinfonia Concertante"). In 2023, Hwayoon Lee performed Shin-uh Lee's viola concerto "Earth Poem" (2023) with the Korean National Orchestra at the National Theatre of Korea (recorded by Arte TV Korea). In December 2022, she undertook a tour of England with the work "Moon Jar Poem" with the same composer, including for the anniversary of British-Korean friendship in London as part of the Loewe Craft Prize. In October 2023, she played with Anne-Sophie Mutter at Nymphenburg Palace for the birthday of Duke Franz of Bavaria; in November 2023, she performed at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and gave a private recital at the Liederhalle Stuttgart with pianist Thomas Hoppe. In 2023, she also performed at the Seoul Spring Festival, the Kronberg Academy Festival and the Crescendo Festival at the Berlin University of the Arts.
She will also return to the Seoul Spring Festival in 2024, to the Radebeul Music Festival and to Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. In June 2024, Hwayoon Lee will perform Alfred Schnittke's "Monologue" for viola and string ensemble with the UdK Orchestra under the direction of Hartmut Rohde.
Since August 2023, the Anne-Sophie Mutter Stiftung has made the famous "Cheremetev" viola available to Hwayoon Lee. It was manufactured in 1865 in the Parisian workshop of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Hwayoon Lee plays a bow made by Benoit Rolland, also on loan from the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation.
March 2024