SONIA LEE
About Sonia Lee
Violinist Sonia Lee, a Detroit native, made her concerto debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic while still in high school and shortly after began her studies at The Juilliard School, where her teachers included Paul Kantor and Dorothy Delay. While still an undergraduate, Sonia won an audition with the Toronto Symphony and was promoted to Principal Second Violinist the following year. Sonia has also appeared as concerto soloist with the New York Chamber Orchestra at the 92nd Street Y. the Toronto Symphony, the Saginaw Bay Symphony, the Grosse Pointe Symphony and the Michigan Sinfonietta.
Also active as a chamber musician, Sonia has concertized across the U.S., Canada and in Europe. She was a featured artist at the CBC Glenn Gould Studio with Marc-Andre Hamelin, Amanda Forsyth, and Martin Beaver and performed with the AVANTI Saraste Chamber Winds and Strings, at the Scarab Club, on the Cranbrook Artist Series and the Schoolcraft Recital Series.
Sonia Lee is a dedicated violin pedagogue, teaching privately and coaching members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Civic Youth Ensembles Honors Program. Many of her students have gone on to be accepted at top tier schools of music and conservatories, win positions with major orchestras and place in international competitions.
Sonia Lee has also received the 2010 Best Film Music award for Raised Alone directed by Sam Kadi. She has written compositions which premiered at concerts with The Detroit Song Collective, her new music trio, Lumino at Trinosophes and has recorded for Gorfaine Schwartz’s Robert Duncan for ABC’s The Castle and The Gates, among many other tv and film projects including The Armenian Trilogy by Dan Yessian and Hope Dies Last by Alexandra Du Bois, commissioned by the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings and David Jackson, Trombonist, with premieres performed at the DIA for Ida Kavafian, and performed by Sonia Lee at the Macomb Center. Sonia is devoted to composing new caprices for modern violin playing and new cadenzas for the standard repertoire. Sonia’s works have been also featured at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang featuring the Team USA Ice Dancers, Madison Chock and Evan Bates’s Free Dance Program, Imagine inspired by John Lennon, where she recorded string arrangements with fellow Detroit artists, Singer, Olivia Dear, Producers and Composers: Mark Heckert, Mike Mullinks, Bryan Reilly, and Steve Saputo. Sonia can also be heard on the Hail to the Victors & Hail to the Frontline Health Workers University of Michigan Hospital for Michigan Medicine courtesy of Yessian Music with DSO cellist Una O’Riordan.
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