Joo Yeon Sir & Irina Andrievsky
Biography Joo Yeon Sir & Irina Andrievsky
Joo Yeon Sir
Described by Strad Magazine as "exuberant... seductive... with bravura and oodles of personality" Korean-born British violinist Joo Yeon Sir is winner of the prestigious Arts Club Karl Jenkins Classical Music Award in association with Classic FM, and the Royal College of Music's President's Award. She has performed at Royal Albert Hall with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Karl Jenkins, the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Manchester Bridgewater Hall, Fairfield Halls and at St James's Palace in the presence of HRH The Prince of Wales. She has regularly appeared live on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM.
Her repertoire is striking and diverse. This season she has played concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Barber, Dvorak, Sibelius, Walton, Bruch and Brahms; other concerto repertoire includes Haydn, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and a particular interest in 20th century works - Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Korngold, Britten, Schnittke, Shostakovich and Nielsen. In recital she is equally at home in solo violin repertoire (Bach, Ysaye, Kreisler and Paganini) as she is in close collaboration with piano or guitar (the latter as one half of Snowden-Sir Duo). Her collaboration with Sir Karl Jenkins has resulted in two works especially written for her unique sound and personality - Lament for the Valley (which became part of his choral work Cantata Memoria) and Chatterbox! (originally for violin/piano, but now also orchestrated for violin/string orchestra).
Aged sixteen, Joo Yeon was overall Grand Prix Laureate at the Nedyalka Simeonova International Violin Competition in Bulgaria, where her gala performance was broadcast on Bulgarian National Radio. In 2015-6, she was selected for the St. John's Smith Square Young Artist Residency, and has been a recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Emily Anderson Award, the Making Music Philip & Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists and selected for the Tillett Trust Young Concert Artist Platform. Following studies with Dr. Felix Andrievsky at the Purcell School of Music and at the Royal College of Music, where she twice won the Concerto Competition, Joo Yeon was also Constant & Kit Lambert Junior Fellow (awarded by The Worshipful Company of Musicians), and presented a sold-out concert series of the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano (with 10 different pianists) as part of her Fellowship.
Also a composer, Joo Yeon won the coveted title of BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year in 2005 and her works have been premiered and performed at Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Cheltenham Town Hall and on BBC Radio 3. At present, she is working closely on transcriptions and compositions with her violin-guitar duo partner Laura Snowden, supported by International Guitar Foundation Young Artists Platform, and her latest work written for the duo (Scherzo) was premiered on BBC Radio 3 to celebrate International Women's Day 2017.
This season's highlight include the Deutsche Grammophon CD and world premiere of Sir Karl Jenkins' Cantata Memoria - For the Children, her solo CD 'Suites & Fantasies' (due for release in May 2017 on Rubicon Classics) with her duo partner Irina Andrievsky, a return to Royal Festival Hall with London Concert Orchestra and her debut with London Mozart Players.
Joo Yeon plays on a Matteo Goffriller violin kindly provided by Georg von Opel.
