Telarc
International released Introducing Shannon Lee in July 2008
Shortly after playing with the Dallas, Shannon opened the Lewisville Lake
Symphony’s International Chamber Music Series and earned a prolonged
standing ovation from our local audience.
The notes dance
off Shannon Lee’s violin and communicate
greatness to even the most untrained
ear.
At 15 years old, this award-winning
violinist and Plano native has already
recorded an album and been a featured
soloist with symphonies from Dallas to
Eugene, Ore.
If you ask Shannon what she thinks about
being a virtuoso, don’t expect her to
brag, she has been playing since learned
how to speak.
Violin is her second language. Shannon
calls it communicating with music.
“You are giving to the audience and they
are giving back,” Shannon said. “It is
really exciting, and that is why it is
great to play for people in a
performance.”
Her list of accomplishments includes a
2007 Davidson Fellow Scholarship, a
silver medal in the 2006 Stulberg
International String Competition and
being named a “young master” by the
Texas Commission on the Arts in 2006.
Jan Mark Sloman — Shannon’s teacher and
principal associate concertmaster for
the Dallas Symphony Orchestra — said
unlike many modern violinists, Shannon
isn’t physically expressive when she
plays.
She doesn’t have to be; the music does
the talking for her, Sloman said.
“In the big-fiddle world, she is
regarded by various serious performers
and teachers as one of the great talents
in the last 50 years,” Sloman said. “She
doesn’t have huge emotive gestures, but
what comes out is extraordinary
expressive and refined.
“In this expressive world she creates
she understands the language of the
violin,” Sloman said.
Shannon’s mother, Frances, describes her
daughter’s genesis on the violin as
almost accidental.
“I was waiting for her to get big enough
to play piano because we had a piano at
home,” Frances said.
“My mom was looking for piano lessons
because she used to play piano when she
was little,” Shannon said. “All the
piano teachers said my hands were too
small because I was three.”
Frances said the
teachers suggested she enroll her
daughter in rhythm classes for
pre-school aged children. She said the
first time Shannon saw a violin it was
love at first sight.
“When she first saw the violin she just
froze,” Frances said. “She saw this
five-year-old boy playing, and she just
wanted to play.”
Teachers began to notice Shannon’s gift
immediately.
“We knew right away, but we never told
her,” Frances said. “I wanted her to use
the instrument to develop a good work
ethic.”
Nearly 11 years later, Shannon is
getting ready to enter her junior year
at Spring Creek Academy. She has played
on NPR’s “From the Top,” traveled with
the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as a
soloist and will soon be a recording
artist.
Shannon’s album, tentatively titled
“Introducing Shannon Lee,” is set for
release in March 2008.
Sloman said they are in the finishing
stages of editing the album. Those who
have heard it say it is so remarkable,
it brought them to tears, he said.
“She is amazing,” Sloman said. “She has
everything it takes to become a great
well-known international solo
violinist.”
For those who have not had a chance to
here Shannon play, don’t fret. Shannon
is strongly considering a career as a
concert violinist and recording artist.
“I’m not really sure yet, but I think a
career in violin would be really fun,”
she said.
Contact Josh Hixson at
jhixson@acnpapers.com
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Photo: Shawn Northcutt Shannon Lee Violin
Friday, Sept 19, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. At Lakeland Baptist Church, Lewisville (Directions) Adults $25, Seniors (60+) $20, Students $10 Families $60 no matter how large the family. Special UNT student and faculty rate: $5
Mozart: Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425 ('Linz')
i.
Adagio; Allegro spiritoso Intermission
Tchaikovsky:
Concerto for Violin and
Orchestra in D Major, Op. 35
The City of Lewisville, Season Sponsor
Shannon is accompanied by Pamela Mia Paul, piano
‘No technical challenge seems beyond her, and her shining tone is gorgeous.’ Scott Cantrell, classical music critic of the Dallas Morning News. (Full review by Scott Cantrell)
‘Shannon Lee is the newest super-prodigy to dazzle audiences with violin pyrotechnics, winning competitions, making debuts with orchestras in North America and Europe and, now, her first solo CD.’ Michael Hubner, The Birmingham News
‘Lee, a Canadian-born prodigy who made her debut at 12 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, has tremendous technique.’ Mary Kunz Goldman, Buffalo News
(More on Shannon at
More on Shannon Lee Young Canadian-born violinist Shannon Lee made a stunning orchestral debut at the age of twelve with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in the summer of 2005, performing both the Chausson Poeme and Franz Waxman’s fiendishly difficult Carmen Fantasy, originally written for Jascha Heifetz.
In a front page article, The Dallas Morning News exclaimed, “When she started to play, her maturity and skill suddenly placed her artistic age far beyond her calendar one.”
Further critical acclaim greeted Shannon in the fall of that year when she was featured as soloist during the DSO’s Texas Tour, performing the Barber Violin Concerto.
Maestro Adron Ming invited her back to open the 2006 Lewisville Lake Symphony Series where she played the Sibelius Violin Concerto.
She was also engaged by Giancarlo Guerrero, for solo performances of Prokofiev's D major Concerto with his orchestra in the spring of ’07. Charlotte’s Maestro Perick also heard Shannon while conducting in Dallas and invited her to North Carolina for performances of the Sibelius Concerto.
In November of ’07, Shannon made her European debut
as she joined Maestro Perick with the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra
in Germany. Recently, Shannon made a recording for Telarc International
Corporation that is planned for release in 2008. During the summer of 2008, Shannon will perform in the Colorado Music Festival and with the Nashville Symphony.
An avid chamber musician, Shannon performed in the Lewisville Lake International Chamber Series earlier this year as part of the program's 'Young Stars.' quintet. The Series is sponsored by the Symphony and the University of North Texas.
Shannon’s summer activities have included Mr. Sloman’s Institute for Strings in Dallas, the Heifetz International Music Institute in New Hampshire, and the ENCORE School for Strings in Cleveland, where Shannon studied with David and Linda Cerone. Shannon was started on violin with teachers Paul Landefeld and Ann Grosshans.
Shannon Lee records on the Telarc International label.
Symphony No. 36 in C major (Linz)Wolfgang Amadeus MozartAdagio: Allegro spiritoso Poco adagio Menuetto Presto
Adagio: Allegro spiritoso. This is the earliest symphony in which Mozart introduces the first movement with a slow passage. This opening is majestic; followed by a transition of chromatic scales that leads to the Allegro of the first movement proper.
Poco adagio. The second movement is somber in mood. An unusual aspect is that Mozart scored for the full ensemble in this slow movement, in which even the trumpets play.
Menuetto. The third movement contains merry dances and an accompaniment of short rhythmical motives which were indigenous in Linz during Mozart’s time.
Presto. The finale offers a festive mood with a rondo-like structure that is based on a series of themes.
Born on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria Died on December 8, 1791 in Vienna, Austria
Wherever he appeared, people gaped in awe at his divine gifts. By his early teens, he had mastered the piano, violin and harpsichord, and was writing keyboard pieces, oratorios, symphonies and operas. His first major opera, Mitridate, was performed in Milan in 1770 (when he was only fourteen), to such unqualified raves that critics compared him to Handel.
At fifteen, Mozart was installed as the concertmaster in the orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Things did not go well, and in 1781 he quit this lofty position and moved to Vienna – quite against his father’s wishes. Now a grown man, Mozart initially thrived in Vienna.
He was in great demand as a performer and composition teacher. But life was not easy. He was a poor businessman, and finances were always tight, especially after his marriage to Constanze Weber, and he descended to a life of genteel poverty. His music from the next decade, which came at an amazingly prolific rate, was only sporadically popular.
He eventually fell back on his teaching jobs and on the charity of friends to make ends meet. In 1788 he stopped performing in public, preferring to devote his time solely to composition. However, fortune never turned for him, and when he died in 1791 at the age of thirty-five he was buried in a pauper’s grave.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op.35Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
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Traveling
from Salzburg to Vienna in 1783, Mozart and his bride stayed at Count
von Thun’s estate in Linz for some respite from their journey. The
nobleman was very solicitous of the couple and scheduled a concert in
honor of his distinguished guest. In response to the kindnesses
showered upon him Mozart composed this symphony in just four days to be
a part of the performance.
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart was a remarkable musician and composer. Almost from
day one, the boy’s reputation as an unexampled musical prodigy grew
faster than wildfire. At five, he was composing music; at six, he
was a keyboard virtuoso, so much so that his father took him and his
sister Maria Anna on a performance tour of Munich and Vienna. 
Peter
Ilyich Tchaikovsky, probably the most famous of all Russian composers,
started his career as a government clerk and began to study music at the
relatively late age of twenty-one. His progress in music was
rapid, however. 