Violinist Yena Lee is YTA’s 2018 Gold Medalist in Strings. She recently shared an update on her career with us.
How would you say your experience with YTA impacted you and your music career?
I participated in the YTA competition during my first year in the doctoral degree program at Rice University. I had been going through this phase where I was a bit tired of participating in competitions, so I stepped away from that environment for quite a bit of time. Then I decided, well, I’m in a new environment, and I want to motivate myself. So, the very first thing I did was search for competition opportunities.
Participating (in the YTA competition) and, thankfully, occupying the prize winner’s position really helped me build a lot of confidence again because I did suffer through a little bit of competition anxiety or stage anxiety. Then, as soon as I competed with YTA, I went off to participate in some other competitions, such as the Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition in Canada, which focuses on contemporary composers. I was able to also place as one of the prize winners for that. Then I participated in a couple of big concerto competitions and had numerous opportunities to play with orchestras. So YTA was a very important stepping stone for me in terms of my musical development.
Now, I’m teaching at University of Oklahoma as an assistant professor of violin. I started that position in the summer of ’21, shortly after finishing my doctoral degree, and I’ve been there since.
What would you say you find rewarding about your work now?
For me, it’s working with a variety of people from diverse educational backgrounds. As a musician, you attend the conservatories and, of course, a lot of universities, they have their own great programs. But the (university) programs/curricula are very similar to the conservatory training. I was raised in that particular way of thinking about musical perspective. But ever since I started teaching at a state university, I realized there are so many students who have received different types of musical education. That really made me interested in wanting to know how the music education system works in middle school and high school.
I think the beauty in it is, if you recognize any sort of room for improvement, you can always initiate something new and try to build from there. It’s challenging, but it’s also very rewarding if you know that what you’re doing is having a good impact on the community. Very often it might be a long-term plan, but sometimes you might get immediate responses, how you changed a particular student’s way of thinking about and playing the musical instrument. Seeing students showing appreciation for classical music always made me feel like, OK, I can definitely trust that I’m doing the right thing, not only for myself, but for other people, too.
What are your goals for yourself from here?
I would like to maintain a very active performance career. Of course, as a teacher, I think it’s crucial to know what type of methodology you should be using and what type of tools you have to guide the students. But my idea is that if you no longer can demonstrate what your students need to see and hear, you are losing one of the quintessential roles of being a teacher. That’s why I’m always looking for ways to keep my performance career as active as I can.
There are several projects that I’m thinking about creating: concert series or summer festivals in Canada, back where my hometown is. Also, there are several recital projects that I really want to do, and one that I’m currently doing is recording all of Brahms’ sonatas for the violin and piano with a great duo partner.
And then, I think I want to create some sort of a platform that can educate not only the prospective college students who are interested in playing the music but also provide some sort of mentorship program for those students who are doing their master’s or doing their doctorates. The trend that I’m seeing for these students is once they have graduated, they really have a hard time navigating which direction to follow. I think it’s important that, as a teacher, you’re not only teaching them the musical skills or the applied instrumental skills, but you also need to teach them what to expect once they are out of this very safe environment. I’d like to make sure they’re equipped to start branching out for their own opportunities.
Could you tell us a little bit about what you enjoy doing when you’re not working? Do you have any hobbies?
I really like piecing together jigsaw puzzles. I could just start one and just not step out of my house until it’s completed. I get obsessed with it.
Another thing is I love dogs. I don’t own one as of now, but I’m always seeking opportunities where I can volunteer in animal shelters, and I’m hoping that, eventually, I could foster some dogs.
Then, I’m trying to get into either doing more pickleball or golf these days. I’ve realized I’ve got to do some sort of physical activity. But one thing that I’ve been doing consistently is a lot of weight training because I suffered a lot of nerve injuries when I was young. I was always trying to play big sounds for projection. If you’re doing a lot of competitions, that is something that you constantly worry about, whether your sound will be carried through the hall. I wasn’t fully aware of how to effectively use my muscles, and I realized every time I prepared for some sort of big concert or competition, I always had those minor nerve injuries. That’s when I started doing a little bit of research: What can I do to prevent it? I came to the conclusion that I need to start building more back strength and also the core muscles so that I’m not only using just the arms, but I’m using the entire upper torso and eventually the entire body to work together to prevent injury, and that’s been very helpful.
Has your taste in music changed over the years? If so, how?
When I was younger, I always loved to listen to recordings of the great violinists of all time like Heifetz, Milstein, and Oistrakh. But somehow, I thought that because I was constantly listening to the recordings, I was imitating their sound, not necessarily trying to share my own voice. Whenever I recorded myself, and I played those recordings, I was shocked and sometimes embarrassed because I didn’t really recognize that this was a sound that I was creating.
Then I started thinking, well, let’s first get back to the very foundation of it. Am I actually following what is on the page by the composer? There are a few exceptions, but I think the majority of composers indicate everything that is needed for you to know in their music, in the score. If you have that conviction, then that should be the right way to play a particular piece or series. Through that process, I finally recognized my true sound: What I’m hearing as I’m playing is the exact same thing that I would hear back from the recordings that I was making.
(This ties in with) an interesting topic that’s being discussed these days, whether should you be very true to what the composer writes or try to be more original as a performer. I honestly, at least during this stage of my life, am geared toward to being true to what the composer writes. Of course you can add the colors and nuances. Just knowing that this is something that I need to focus on has helped me get rid of the stage anxiety. If I’m just focusing on my sound and what I need to do, there’s not really room for anxiety to start creeping in. You’re so occupied, and you have to just kind of be in that trance. So that’s what I’m trying to focus on these days; I’m trying to be very true to what the composer writes.
What advice would you offer classical musicians who are just starting their careers?
I would say, be patient and truly believe that the hard work always pays off. It’s just a matter of time. I’ve seen numerous cases where some people became very successful because the timing was right. Everything just came to them quite easily. And I know that some people go through numerous cycles of successes and slight failures, and they have this long period of waiting (for their careers to take off). But in the end, what you should be focusing on is that if you believe you have great music to offer, people will recognize the quality.
It’s so difficult these days to get anything (performance opportunities), but don’t be pessimistic about it. Whatever comes to you, whether that’s small or big, you always try to give your best. That would be my advice, being patient is the key — and being very diligent while you’re being patient. Always prepare yourself for any sort of opportunity that might come to you. You just never know; one connection can lead to something great.