NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Andrew J. Groveman Katie Wassmer

Belz Thompson & Berry PR

(901) 260-7278 (901) 251-5103

Award-Winning Teen Violinist to Perform at Belz-Parker Artist Ascending Concert Series

Itzhak Perlman Student Sean Lee to Perform Free for Public

MEMPHIS, Tennessee, January 2, 2007 – Sean Lee, an accomplished and award-winning violinist, will perform a free concert on Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 7:45 p.m. in the Belz Auditorium at Baron Hirsch Congregation, 400 South Yates.

The concert is presented by the Belz-Parker Artists Ascending Concert Series, a series that has introduced some of the world’s best up-and-coming musicians to Memphis audiences for more than 40 years. Many of the series past performers have gone on to gain international recognition in the world of classical music.

Lee, who began playing the violin at the age of four, has impressed audiences nation-wide with his talent and passion for classical music. At age nine, Lee started playing with the Disney’s Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra, performing with the Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl in 1997 and as second violin principal at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago in 1998 and Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in 1999.

Lee also gained attention by performing with singer Michael Bolton at the 1997 Cable Ace Awards and appearing in the 1998 movie, Music of the Heart. In addition, Lee has performed at the Children’s Burn Center at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon for two consecutive years and in a commercial for Texaco, which sponsors musical education programs.

In 1998, Lee received an Honorary Award from the Young Musicians Foundation for outstanding musical achievements, and, the following year, he received an award for educational excellence from the President of the United States. Lee also was one of 130 artists selected from 6,500 applicants by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts to attend the 2005 ARTS Awards, and he received the 2005 Emerging Young Artist Award in Music by the California Alliance for Arts Education.

Lee has been a winner of the Redlands Bowl competition, the Valley Cultural Center Scholarship competition, the Leni Febland Scholarship and the YMF Scholarship. He has made solo appearances with the Palos Verdes Regional Orchestra, OCHSA Symphony, Redlands Symphony, Culver City Chamber Orchestra, Capistrano Valley Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Zipper Orchestra and the Orchestra Da Camera of the Colburn School.

He has performed solo with the Peninsula Symphony as a winner of the Edith Knox Competition, the South Coast Symphony as a “Young Stars of the Future” competition winner, The Torrance Symphony Orchestra as a “Bramhall Young Artist” competition winner and the Brentwood-Westwood Symphony Orchestra as an “Artist of Tomorrow.”

Now 19, Lee has attended ENCORE School for Strings for three summers under the Hudson Community Scholarship and has studied for the past three years as a student of the Perlman Music Program.

Lee currently attends Juilliard School as a recipient of the C.V. Starr Scholarship and Louis & Sarah Mindich Scholarship. He studies privately with internationally acclaimed violinist, and former Belz-Parker Artists Ascending Concert Series performer, Itzhak Perlman, and has studied in the past with renowned violin professor Robert Lipsett and legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci.

For more than 40 years, the Artists Ascending Concert Series has brought some of the world’s most promising young classical musicians to Memphis to showcase their blossoming talents. Several notable performers from previous years, including violinist Itzhak Perlman, conductor Daniel Barenboim, pianist Misha Dichter and violinist Gil Shaham, have gone on to achieve worldwide acclaim.

The Belz-Parker Artists Ascending Concert Series is free to the public. For more information, please call (901) 683-7485.

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