American Violinist Christel Lee Wins First Prize at the Sibelius Competition

December 4, 2015, 1:30 PM · Congratulations to American violinist Christel Lee, who won first place in the 11th International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition, held Nov. 22 to Dec. 3 in Helsinki.

Lee, 25, was born in Bloomington, Ind. of South Korean parentage and grew up in Canada. She studied at the Münich School of Music and Theatre, at the Kronberg Academy with Ana Chumachenco, and at the Juilliard School with Naoko Tanaka and Kyung Wha Chung. View her Sibelius competition performances here.

Christel Lee.

Here are the top prize winners:

First prize: (25,000 €): Christel Lee, U.S.
Second prize: (18,000 €): Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, Austria
Third prize: (12,000 €): Friederike Starkloff, Germany

Three other finalists each received a prize of 2,000 euros:

Mayumi Kanagawa, U.S.
Minami Yoshida, Japan
Nancy Zhou, U.S.

Other prizes included:

Best Interpretation of Sibelius Violin Concerto (3,000 €): Emmanuel Tjeknavorian
Interpretation of commissioned piece in second round (2,000 €) Friederike Starkloff
Best Finnish Contestant (invitation to make a recording for YLE): Pekko Pulakka

Jury members were Pierre Amoyal, Serguei Azizian, Sigrún Edvaldsdóttir, Pekka Kauppinen, Sung-Ju Lee, Cho-Liang Lin, Gerhard Schulz and Krzysztof Wegrzyn. The Sibelius competition is open to violinists younger than 30 and has been held every five years since 1965.