「Deutsche Welle」 (15. DEC. 2019)
SHIHYUN LEE
Born in South Korea in 1991, pianist Shihyun Lee won the 1st Prize in the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Competition (the competition where all German Universities can send only their two best representatives every four years for piano to compete) as well as the Special Prize for her interpretation of the commissioned work (by Kit Armstrong). In 2019, she was also awarded the 3rd Prize and the Special Prize for contemporary music in the International Telekom Beethoven Piano Competition Bonn. Recently, her first album was released by Betont production; the album includes 3 B flat Major Piano Sonatas of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Paul Hindemith, "Hammerklavier" Sonata of Ludwig van Beethoven and Etudes de dessin of Kit Armstrong (🎧). She gained extensive experience as a soloist with various orchestras in her homeland and made her debut with the Berliner Konzerthausorchester, performing Mendelssohn's First Piano Concerto at the Konzerthaus Berlin, where she gave her solo recital as well in 2019 with a stunning “Hammerklavier” Sonata Op. 106 of L. v. Beethoven. Shihyun Lee focuses primarily on German nineteenth-century repertoire and dedicates herself as a soloist to various forms of chamber music. She keeps presenting her music by communicating with the audience through recitals and concerts every year.
Shihyun Lee obtained her bachelor’s degree as a scholarship student at Seoul National University with Prof. Hieyon Choi and Jinson Kim. She has been a student of Prof. Markus Groh at the Universität der Künste Berlin(University of Arts Berlin) since 2014, in which capacity her playing and an interview were broadcast live by rbb Kulturradio Deutschland in a special program dedicated to conservatory graduates.
Shihyun Lee has been supported in her studies with a scholarship by the Ad Infinitum Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and C. Bechstein Stiftung. In 2010, she won the 1st Prize in the Beethoven Competition Seoul and the 3rd Prize in the Chopin Competition Seoul in the following year. In 2017, she was awarded the 2nd Prize in the Artur Schnabel Competition in Berlin (no first prize was given that year).
In October 2023, her second masterpiece album featuring Mendelssohn's Fantasies, Caprices, and Variations, recorded with the Dynamic Label, was released (🎧).
